Reflections of the Pastby PhaorayChaptersNothing VenturedNothing GainedNothing FoundBut Something LostMeanie PinkieWait...Why Did You Click on Countdown Pinkie?TwilightVinyl ScratchNothing VenturedAs the small Hippogriff ship sailed across the waves, two voices could easily be heard in debate on the ocean going vessel’s main deck. “Honey,” Queen Novo said, “I respect what you are trying to do, but that name has to go.” Spike shook his head vehemently, his little wings flapping slightly in agitation. “What’s wrong with Spears for Toys? It gets weapons off the streets, no questions asked, and ponies get something in return they can bring home to their family.” Novo made a twirling motion with one of her claws in the air. “Nah, nah, see, the way I see it, that name at the least needs to be switched around. Even with that, though, this whole thing just sounds reckless.” “It’s too late to change the title now,” Spike argued. “Besides, Twilight was on board right after she heard the name and how it would help Canterlot’s crime problem. She already approved the program and the funds.” “Sure. Ahm not saying Twilight isn’t smart, but giving over complete power of a nation to somepony who just last year was running a school sounds like asking for trouble.” “It’ll be fine.” Spike assured Novo.” There’s been no major disasters so far.” “Then y'all’s just due for one then.” “It’s fine.” “Allright, but don’t come flying over to me none when this whole thing blows up. Toys for Spears would of been less confusing” “It’ll be fine.” Spike repeated again. He then paused for a second, curious about something else. “By the way, what made you decide to come on this trip anyways?” “Twilight, actually.” Novo said with a small smile. “I was more than a little impressed at everything she did to save Equestria from the Storm King. Now, scouting these islands to figure out what’s causing all this ruckus ain’t the same thing, but it’s a start.” Spike brought a clawed hand up to his face nervously. “Do you really think this is the Storm King’s army?” “Maybe, maybe not. But he had a lot of ships, so it wouldn’t surprise me none if whatever is left is behind all the fighting. The islands were never the best of friends, but they weren’t stupid enough to go to war with one another for no good reason like this.” Spike agreed on that. Before Twilight sent him out to act as a representative of Equestria to the Island nations, she had insisted he read up a bit on their history. The islands southwest of Equestria may not have always been at peace, but they had never attacked each other in the past without some declaration of war. Yet that seemed to be exactly what was happening from the brief reports coming back to Equestria. Spike looked out across the ocean, to the green speck of an island they were headed to. The island of Cad. With any luck, they’d gather some clues and stop whoever was behind these attacks before things got any worse. A few steps onto the islands docks, and Spike had to shake his head sadly at what he saw. How could somepony do something like this? Spike had heard what happened during the conflict between the buffalo and the villagers of Apploosa, he had witnessed first hand the damage the Storm King did to Canterlot; but it never got easier for him. Cad was a fair sized port town, named after the island it stood on. The houses were made mostly of sandy colored rock or occasionally a muddy brick with dirt roads in between. The drab colors made the remains of pies splattered across the buildings only stand out more as Spike and Novo entered the town from the docks. Occasional spots along the walls had a strange goopy white and orange trail dripping down them, making Spike think of the path a snail would make. “I guess we arrived a little late.” Spike said. “Naw, the way I see it, we arrived at exactly the right time.” Novo replied, tracing a claw through part of a peach pie on a building as she walked. “Better this hit when we weren’t here to get a face full of it.” “Good point.” Spike conceded, continuing to walk towards the middle of town. The assortment of colors splattered along some buildings were astounding, as if somepony had gotten over excited on a painting project and just used every color they could find. Spike gaped at two particular houses that had somehow collapsed under the onslaught of baked goods. “Now see? If they were living underwater, wars like this couldn’t happen.” Novo muttered. “I wouldn’t count on it. If you asked, I’m sure Pinkie would figure out a way to bring baked goods to the ocean.” “Well then, we’d better not ask her. The ocean doesn’t need this kind of damage done to it, thanks.” A croaky voice called out. “Uhm, excuse me?” Looking to his left, Spike spotted a pony near the pie-encrusted center fountain they were just about to pass. He was a green elderly stallion with a red mane and a fishing hook for a cutie mark. “Might you two be Novo the hippogriff and Spike the dragon?” Spike grinned and replied sarcastically. “Really? What gave us away?” The old pony snorted and shook Spike’s hand. “I am Mayor Gruffwind, a pleasure to meet you. Sorry to say that you came here at a poor time for our village, but then again, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Spike nodded, conceding the point. “True, we haven’t had any issues or problems with the Island Nations, so there was never any need to send a representative till now.” Spike explained. “So, what the hay happened here?” Gruffwind gestured around the town. “Pretty easy to see, isn’t it? From all accounts I could find from two days ago, ponies around town heard a battle cry just as the attack began.” “Anything notable about the battle cry?” Gruffwind shook his head. “Nope, just your typical cry of ‘food fight!’ before the first wave of pies hit the walls.” “Gotcha, yeah, nothing odd there. What happened next?” “Welp,” Gruff continued. “Once the guard posts and walls were too slippery to hold, the fighting hit the rest of the town. From what I heard, the bakeries were hit next. Poor Melda Maples lost her entire stock in just a moment as the raiders grabbed all her munitions and either ate em or turned em on the town.” “That must have been horrible for her to see.” Novo said, feather bristling. “Is the poor mare okay?” “She’ll recover, but she witnessed every baker’s worst fear, having your own creations turned on those you love” Gruffwind replied. “But, after the walls fell, it was nothing but pure chaos. I was lucky, my grand kids insisted I stay inside, but the militia was completely overwhelmed.” “I...I see.” Spike swallowed hard. “What happened after that? What did they take?” “Well now, that’s one of the odd things. Asides from not paying for Melda’s pastries, they didn’t really take much. A couple kids toys, marbles, but nothing important. The local hospital is full of ponies who claim to have been ‘wedgied’ somehow. They weren’t wearing anything, but the bruises are there. The attackers just seemed to have left their calling card and vanished.” “Wait,” Spike asked uncomfortably. “wedgies are their calling card?” “What? No! Those are!” Gruffwind pointed out to a few small flags sticking to the houses, or smeared in with the pie remains. “Those are the flags of Bury, one of our neighbors. Never did trust them, but I don’t understand why they would do this without a declaration of war. They seem to be staking a claim on the island.” “Are you sure it’s them?” “It would have to be, no other reason to stick those flags in town other than to lay claim to the island, that’s just tradition after all. Once we clean up the town, we’ll have to make plans of our own.“ Gruffwind gave a grim look. “Besides that, they are using weapons from the forbidden island, that alone means-” SPLAT! Something cracked against the side of Spike’s head, mushing into a paste that covered half his head and partially blinded him. A far too sweet smell hit his snout. He tried to wipe it off around his eye, but his hands just became sticky and smeared it around in the process. It looked similar to that white and orange good he had seen on the walls of some of the buildings, with some chocolate mixed in. Whatever this was, it was thick and hard to clean off, almost like a syrup. “There he is!” Novo cried out and ran out of Spike’s limited vision. “Use this.” Gruffwind said, putting a small rag in Spike’s paw. “Thanks!” Spike rubbed the rag over his eye as he took off after Novo. “Get back here!” Novo shouted from far in front of Spike, who was struggling to keep up while cleaning his face. After a few moments of this Spike rounded a corner only to hit a dead end between two houses. “Darn it.” Spike gasped out, panting. “I swore Novo went down here, I better-” A creepy feeling went down Spike’s spine as he faced the wall in front of him. He was used to this feeling on Nightmare Night, when Rainbow Dash was on the prowl. It was the feeling that somepony was watching him. Just stay calm, Spike. You’re a big dragon, Twilight’s Right Hoof! If she can lead a nation, you can just, just turn around and deal with whatever it is. Okay? Okay. One...Two....Three! Spike spun around as fast as he could, only to see nothing there. “Oh thank Celestia! O-okay, I better find Novo in case she’s in trouble.” Spike started to head out of the alleyway but paused after a few steps. That feeling was back again, and stronger than ever. Slowly, he took one step forward. Step,step. He took another. Step,step. There was no doubt in Spike’s mind;something was behind him. Slowly he turned his head. Nothing. He turned his head to look over his other shoulder. Still nothing. As fast as he could, Spike turned completely around. Nothing was there, but he could swear he heard somepony moving behind him again. Thinking quickly, Spike bent down and peered between his own legs only to still find nothing. At least, for the few seconds it took something to land on his back. “And you didn’t see who it was, hun?” Novo asked skeptically. “I’m telling you, she was following behind, mocking me! She just giggled and ran off after I fell over!” “Uh-huh.” Spike grumbled as they made their way into Bury, the second town on their list. He shuddered as they passed two fillies running along the dock. Their laughter brought Spike back to the oddly familiar giggle the pony he had been pursuing did before fleeing. I swear I’ve heard that laugh before. But who was it? Definitely a mare, but she was gone before I could see. “Ah’m not saying I don’t believe you, hun, but we searched the island over an didn’t find hide nor hair of anypony who didn’t live there.” “W-well, she must be good at hiding.” “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt, who knows what might have happened if there were more of them.” The conversation trailed off as they entered Bury. Thankfully, the town was in good shape this time, though something had clearly happened not too long ago. There were still some notable pie stains on the sides of several houses. Spike took notice of a few piles of rubble that likely had been houses at one point. The two were met by the town’s leader Gulf Stream, a middle-aged Pegasus stallion with baby blue fur and a yellow mane with a cloud and a hook for a cutie mark. “It’s terrible,” Gulf explained after introductions, “Cad is exactly what they claim to be, a bunch o’ low-down cads! It’s good to see sum’ interest from Equestria an’ the Hippogriffs, but don’t you worry none, we’ll be taking care of this ourselves.” “It kind of looks like you already did.” Spike explained. “Somepony attacked Cad just a few days ago.” Gulf raised an eye at that. “Hmph, well, serves em right for what they did here. Woke up in the middle of the night a month ago to them jerks flinging pies into the town. They trashed the place, put their claim to the island down, and left before we knew what was happening.” A cold breeze blew in, causing Spike to shiver a little as Gulf stared at him and Novo hard. “Whoever hit em didn’t do enough, as far as me and the town of Bury is concerned. You want to look around and see what you can see? That’s fine, we won’t stop ya, but we’ll be headed to Cad in the next few weeks to show em that Bury ain’t no chickens! Nor do we need to break taboo and steal eggs from the sacred island to fight.” “S-sacred island?” Spike asked, teeth chattering as the mid-afternoon began to fade and the temperature dropped on the island. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not ‘forbidden’, or anything silly like that. But you are only ‘supposed’ to go there late in the Spring as part of a pilgrimage, or to prepare for a ‘sacred’ war, though one of those aint happened since I can remember. Well...till now, I suppose?” “We’re not all that sure Cad actually attacked you.” Novo explained. “I mean sure there are a bunch of flags of theirs laying around here, but why wouldn’t you suppose the Storm King or some creature else isn’t egging you on?” Novo questioned. “Hmmm, well, now, there is a thought. But, the Storm King was always more about sending in ships and his goons to fight us directly, not that he particularly bothered much with us. Nuttin here he wanted, I guess. But he weren’t big on being sneaky.” Gulf Stream shrugged. “As fer anypony else? Wouldn’t make no sense. They know how ta attack, how ta lay claim, they went and got some of tha sacred eggs to be throwing at our town. So they knew about how ya declare a holy war of sorts. And besides that, all the islands know Cad’s been jealous of our place on the Island council since forever. Just makes sense they’d try to take us down a peg.” “Could you please just wait until our investigation is over then? Let us make sure it’s not some outside group trying to make your islands go to war?” Spike pleaded as Gulf shook his head. “I can give you a few weeks, we are still cleaning up and need ta prepare for the Fall, but we ain’t taking this lying down. Once we are ready, we’re taking the fight to them. Now, if there isn’t anything else, good luck, and enjoy your time on our island.” With a slight bow to both of them, Gulf walked passed them and down one of the roads. “Well, ain’t nothing but trouble brewing on these islands.” Novo commented. Spike rubbed his arms together to get some heat before sighing. “Apparently. Let’s see what the rest of the islanders have to say, but whoever is behind this is really riling everypony up.” The real question though is why? Nothing GainedHehehehe… Spike grumbled and drowsily opened one of his eyes to his pitch black cabin room. Hehehe... The second round of soft giggling dowsed what remained of his desire to sleep. Wide-eyed, he looked around the cabin, peering into the darkness for a moment as his ears worked hard to listen to anything past the water hitting the sides of the ship and the creaking of the wood. Nothing. Spike let go of the death grip he had on his blanket and slowly reached over to the candle holder on the table next to his bed. After taking a breath to calm himself, he let out a small burst of flame, lighting the candle. The room lit up, throwing a dozen shadows out from the furniture. Spike wasn’t sure if he preferred this over the pitch black at the moment, but at least he was able to confirm that nothing was in the room with him. Spike racing mind managed to calm down a little, letting him go from its paralyzing touch enough to get off the bed and pace around the room. Nopony was in the small bathroom attached to his room, and nothing was waiting under the bed besides dust and spare sheets. Tap! Spike jumped, hitting the back of his head against the wooden frame of the bed. Groaning, he slipped his head out from underneath the bed and stood up, more annoyed than afraid now thanks to the pain. Warily, he stared over to the only glass object visible in the room; the small black porthole. Slowly, he made his way over to it. Perhaps a rock or something had hit it? A fish jumping out and now dealing with a small concussion? Could he be so lucky? Peering out into the inky black sea, it slowly dawned on Spike that a few stray pink hairs were dangling along the left corner outside of the porthole, dancing with the wind. “Fun?” The clear inquiry coming from right in front of Spike caused him to yelp and pull back a few steps from the porthole. As the light drifted away, the upside down silhouette of a pony’s face peered back at Spike, covering the porthole in a shadow of dark pink as the pony's hair damply hung across it. CRASH! Spike fell backwards onto the floor as a wave crashed into the side of the ship, the face in the porthole disappearing with the water. Shakily, Spike got back onto his feet and stared at the porthole for a few minutes to confirm whoever the pony was was not coming back. “Never sailing again,” He muttered, making a break for the door before anything else happened. Nothing. Spike grumbled and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Bags were under his eyes and he still felt sore from all the searching he did last night along with the crew for the pony he saw. But After over an hour of searching there wasn’t any trace of a pony on board. The crew was especially sure of this since everyone on board was a Hippogriff but himself, so a pony would have stuck out. Grabbing his toothbrush, Spike started cleaning his teeth as he blinked rapidly to get the sleep out of his eyes. What little sleep he managed afterwards was restless at best. Between the strange, familiar mare in the window and the fear of falling asleep and setting the boat on fire by keeping a half dozen candles burning the rest of the night, sleep had been an idealistic thought. Spike yawned again and put the toothbrush down, grabbing the offered glass of water. “Thanks, Pinkie.” He muttered, downing the glass into his mouth and gargling. “No problemo!” She chirped back. A shattering noise registered in Spike’s ears as he spit the water all over his mirror and looked to the side. A second later, he slowly turned away from the mirror and took in the rest of the bathroom, confirming that he was alone. He stepped forwards, hearing the crack of the remains of the glass underneath his legs as he exited the bathroom, then his room, and kept going until he found Queen Novo up on the bow enjoying the early morning sun. “Hey there, partner, still spooked about last night?” She asked. “Could we switch rooms, please?” Spike paced back and forth on the deck of the ship, Queen Novo sat nearby, filing her claws. Their visit to Cream island had been the same story as the other two. The only major difference between Cream and the others was just how cold it was. Cold snaps weren’t unknown to the area, but rumors from passing ships of snowstorms being seen on the horizon didn’t make the situation any less weird for everypony involved. “Each island is the same thing, over and over.” Spike commented out loud. “Someone attacks unexpectedly, steals next to nothing, puts flags down claiming the land, and then disappears.” “Mhmm.” Novo replied. “But why, and who? If it’s the Storm King’s old army, then there would be a lot more of those big guys involved, and no one could mistake those for ponies, right?” “Mhmm.” “Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are in stone, so it can’t be them. Do you think it’s somepony new?” “Mhmm.” “And,-” Spike’s eyes looked back and forth nervously. “D-do you think they might be a ghost?” “Mhmm.” “Wait, really?” “Mhmm.” Spike looked over to Novo and gave a dull expression. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” “Mhmm.” “Some help you are.” Spike muttered before giving a sigh. “What’s wrong hun?” Novo asked, blowing on her claws. “Nothing. Thanks for changing rooms, by the way.” “If it helps put you at ease it’s worth it. And you don’t have to worry about me none, whatever kept you up will be contending with a Queen tonight, and I don’t intend to lose.” She said, grinning over at him and flashing her claws. “I’m sure you won’t. So, you really think the sacred island of theirs might have something on it?” Novo shrugged. “Well it ain’t a bad idea to check it out. I mean, nopony lives there, right?” Spike nodded. “Kinda makes it a good place to hide then, don’t you think? And they have to have some way of getting their hands on those eggs of theirs. Even if it isn’t their hiding spot, we might get lucky and see them gathering the things.” “Makes sense, I just wish we had more to go on.” “Me too Sweetie, but that’s the breaks, right?” Novo got up again, stretching. “Now, how about we call it a day? It’s getting a bit too chilly out here and we’ll be to this Egg island of theirs soon enough.” “Pssst!” Spike opened his eyes to blackness. “Psst!” I guess it’s not just my room then… “Over here.” “Pinkie? Is that you?” he asked, peering into the dark. “Hurry!” Spike felt his wings shoot up in fear as a shadow by the door moved. He could barely tell, but the one spot that was just slightly less black than the rest of the room had shifted, so it must have been her. Shakily, Spike got off the bed, too focused on keeping an eye on that less black shape to grab and light a candle. “Come on.” The black shape moved again and suddenly blended in with the rest of the dark. Spike strained his ears, but the sound of hoof steps never reached them. Cautiously, he made his way to his door and reached out a claw, confirming his suspicion that it was open. Seriously, how is this kind of stuff only happening to me on this trip? Spike walked through the lower deck and headed for the stairwell to the upper decks. If that shadow Pinkie was headed down, well, there was no way he was following. The bowels of ships was where all the bad stuff happened in his comics. As Spike reached the stairwell, the sound of rain hit his ears. “Come on, Spike. I won’t bite.” Pinkie said in a dark tone, following up with a quiet giggle. Spike heard the door above him open but never close. Warily, he followed, closing the door behind him. Nervously, Spike looked around the main deck, wondering if he had taken a wrong turn. He knew it was impossible, but he really wished he had. The shadow pony with Pinkie’s voice had her back turned to him as she leaned against the rail a dozen meters from Spike. The light rain coming down had seemingly been accompanied by mist which lazily coiled and drifted around his shins. The squeal as wind hit the sails and pulled the ropes taut just confirmed to Spike that his comics had missed the mark by always focusing on what happens under the ship than above. Spike swallowed, running his tongue over his mouth briefly before starting his short trek over to Pinkie, eyes nervously darting around. Where were the guards? Who was at the steering wheel? There was supposed to be others up here other than himself! ...Is that a bucket? It was a little silly of him to distract from everything else, but yes, a few yards away from the shadowy Pinkie was a metal bucket with mist wafting out of it. What the- “Is Purple Snooty here?” “Huh?” “Purply Snooty!” The Pinkie growled out, her flat hair hanging down her left shoulder as she looked behind herself at Spike. “You know her, I saw you with her.” “U-uhm, do you mean Twilight? She’s not here, why?” Pinkie gave out a small sigh of relief. “Good. That’s...good.” From only a few hooves away, Spike could see Pinkie well enough, the moonlight that filtered through the light cloud cover was particularly helpful, despite how little of it there was. This pony was Pinkie, but also not. Her colors were darker, her expression more severe. Just being in Pinkie’s presence could lift Spike’s spirit. But here, with her, all he felt was unease. This wasn’t Pinkie. “Who are you?” The fake Pinkie smiled at him as a low humming sound began. It wasn’t coming from her, but Spike was not about to look away to figure it out. She took her hooves off the rail and fully faced him with a grin. “Oh, Spike, I’m Pinkie.” “You’re not.” He insisted. “Pinkie’s not like this. She can be creepy, but she doesn’t mean to. And why are you asking about Twilight?” “Hmph.” She grumbled, giving him a calculating glare. “Whatever, I don’t really care right now. And I’m just making sure she’s not going to blast me or my friends.” The humming grew a little louder. Briefly, Spike let his eyes flick to his sides, but couldn’t see anything past the mist and darkness. “So, who are you then? The real Pinkie would know Twilight wouldn’t do anything to her friends.” He gave her a weak glare, too unnerved to look any more threatening. “You’re the one attacking the islands, aren’t you?” “Pfft.” She flicked a hoof at him in mirth. “I’m not attacking the islands, I don’t attack my friends.” “...What?” She chuckled, sending shivers down Spike’s spine at the malevolence oozing out of the pony in front of him. “Oh, Spike.“ THUMP! Spike jumped as two changeling’s landed on the deck, each one flanking the fake Pinkie and carrying metal buckets. “Everypony, scratch that. Every creature is my friend.” And that’s my cue to run. Spike turned around and made it all of two steps before slipping on something. He smacked into the floor, rolling over as the world spun in his eyes. A changeling came into his sight and hissed down at him before a pink pony filled his vision, wearing a smirk. “Except her.” “GAH!” Spike sprung up from his bed, gasping and looking around. “Huh?” Disorientated, he looked around. It was morning, he could hear Hippogriffs working up on the deck. He stared around in amazement. “Are you kidding me!?” A nightmare? Was that it? Spike got out of bed, eyeing his room. Nothing was out of place. He gave a short bark of a laugh and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeep!” Of course, I couldn’t be so lucky. He lamented, rubbing the bump on the back of his head. “Nothing you can do right now, Spike. B-better just, clean up and head out. M-maybe you just bumped it yesterday on deck and didn’t notice?” He took two steps forward before slipping on a banana peel. Nothing FoundEgg Island; sacred to the Island Nations. Landing there outside of certain times, or when not attending for celebrations or to perform certain rituals was considered taboo. Novo knew this, but at the moment, she had bigger concerns. “T-this isn’t good,” Spike said next to her, teeth chattering. The minute she had arrived on the main deck this morning, she could feel the cold wrap over herself. Thankfully, she was a Hippogriff, and one who was used to living in cold waters at that. “Hmmm…”Novo grunted in reply, watching the hippogriffs as they lashed the ship to the small deck on the island. “You’re right, I’m not sure why, but this place is absolutely freezing.” “It can’t just be here.” Spike replied. “It’s been getting colder since we started this trip. But why? It-” “It what?” Novo asked, looking over when Spike didn’t continue. Spike’s jaw was wide open as he looked at something on the island. Novo lined her vision up as best she could next to Spike. The island was green, though a level of frost was lightly starting to coat most of it. Novo had expected to see more of a jungle, or coconut trees, but no, it was just vast fields of green with a large mountain at the center. She thought the lack of animals was odd given the grassy fields. After a few more seconds of watching, the air above one of the fields moved. Novo blinked and looked again. “What is that?” She wondered aloud. “A Windigo…” Spike replied with dread. “A what?” She asked, squinting at the creature. She could see an outline, but it was hard to trace against the air. She heard Spike walking away, presumably to the gangplank. “We need to hurry.” “So, there are changelings and windigos on the island.” Novo confirmed, flying next to Spike as he walked around the mountain, eyes moving rapidly. “That’s what I think.” “And a changeling is…?” “It’s like a bug pony, I guess? Most of them are good now, but apparently not all of them turned a new leaf when we kicked their queen’s butt.” Spike explained as he walked, looking for any caves or signs of one. “Uh huh, and this is all from you seeing them in your dream?” “Oh, believe me, I wish it was all a dream.” Spike muttered. “Changelings live in hives, if they are here, they’ll be in this mountain… somewhere.” “Hun, allright. But, is your plan to just walk around this mountain hoping we find it?” “Unless you have a better one?” “Well, now, stop me if this sounds crazy but, we could fly.” “Uh-huh.” Spike said with a slightly sarcastic tone. “And you don’t think they would have figured out how to hide from anyone looking down? Plus, it’s a cave! Won’t being away from the ground just make it harder to spot?” “Suit yourself.” Novo flapped her wings harder and gained height before circling Spike once before heading higher. “And now I’m alone. Great.” Spike made it another hundred yards before Novo flew down and landed next to him. “Heh, that was quick.” Spike said, grinning. “How’d it go?” “Found it.” Spike’s grin turned into a solid line. “Excuse me?” “Yep, their mailbox is about a fathom ahead of us.” He scowled at her. “You’re making that up.” “What?” Novo looked at him, surprised. “No, a fathom is usually a nautical mile, but-” “No, not that, I mean about the mailbox.” Novo cocked her head to the side, looking at him before starting a casual walk. “No, it’s there.” “Changeling’s don’t have mailboxes.” “So those friendly changelings of yours don’t get any mail?” “No, no.” Spike shook his head, stepping quickly to catch up to her. “They have mailboxes now.” “Well, so do these ones. I don’t understand the problem you're having with this concept.” “Why would they have a mailbox!” Spike exclaimed, a little puff of fire shooting out of one nostril. “So they can get mail.” Came Novo’s calm reply. “From who!?” “Oh, look. Here it is.” Novo replied back, smugly pointing to a red mailbox a few hundred yards in front of them. “WHY!?” Spike screamed before falling back into the grass dramatically. After a brief moment of looking up at the clouds, Novo appeared in his vision, giving him a questioning look. “You okay down there?” “Yeah. Just working through some things.” “Alright. But isn’t this a bit dramatic for a mailbox?” “I learned from the best.” Spike replied with a strange sense of pride. After another moment, Spike stood back up. “Okay, let’s deal with this.” “Spike?” “What?” “Are you done glaring at the poor mailbox already?” “I’m just trying to figure out what’s bothering me the most. The fact that it’s here, or-” Spike opened the mailbox. “That there is actually mail in it.” “Well, we didn’t come here to go through their mail, right?” Novo reasoned, looking back at the mountain. “Besides, that’s illegal.” “I know. Twilight would kill me.” He closed the mailbox and turned back to the mountain. Only to see a changeling standing not ten yards away from him. Black chitin. Definitely not the friendly ones. Cautiously, Spike took a few steps back as Novo did the same. “Um, hey.” Spike said, hoping he sounded calmer than he really was. “Hey.” The changeling replied with a gruff Pinkie-like voice. They stared at each other for another moment before the Changeling spoke up again. “So, I’m...just gonna-” Warily, the Changeling walked over to the mailbox, keeping his eyes on the two of them, and grabbed the mail. “Okay then.” The Changeling said uneasily. “Say, you didn’t go through this or anything?” “No, no, we were just curious.” Spike insisted. The Changeling looked them over suspiciously. “Okay then. Cause that’s illegal you know.” “Yep, yep, we know.” Spike said, Novo nodding in confirmation. The Changeling took a few steps backwards and, after another silent exchange of glances, flew off. Spike followed the Changeling’s path as it banked into a nearby gaudy cave. Gaudy. Spike had no other word for it. Bright yellow Sunflowers, mostly made from paper and crayons, were strewn across the sides of the cave, along with ornaments that would fit easily into the Summer Sun Celebration back home. I-is that a welcome mat? Clack! The constant sounds of digging surrounded Spike and Novo as they entered the cave tunnel. It started off soft, but grew louder as they pressed on, along with the droning noises of changelings flying. The cave was fairly straight forward and lit by different colored paper lantern lights strung haphazardly along the walls as an odd line of paper sunflowers descended into the tunnel. Despite passing a few smaller tunnels, Spike figured it would be best to follow the main passage to prevent them from getting lost, though it did make them easy to spot. It was a bit discomforting. But what perturbed Spike the most though was the random, off-key singing. “I am a Changeling and I’m digging a hole!” A unseen Changeling shouted out in a chipper, Pinkie-like voice. This led to Spike covering both his ears for what he knew was to follow. “DIGGY DIGGY HOLE! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE!” Screamed out a capathony of other equally chipper voices. “Spike!” Novo yelled out, rubbing her ears in pain. “Can we please figure out what we are doing before I go deaf?” “I’m trying, okay? We need to find whoever is behind this and stop them.” Spike looked around. “But it’s not like I really know where they are or anything.” “Hey, wait!” Another Pinkie-like voice suddenly called out. Spike turned to look down the tunnel on his left just as something collided with his foot. Looking down revealed a small, fuzzy white rabbit staring up at him. “Oh. Hi there, little guy,” Spike said, picking the rabbit up and petting its head. “You okay?” “Bwak bwak bwak!” The sound of a chicken coming out of the rabbit’s mouth startled Spike into dropping the rabbit. Spike backed away from the rabbit. “What the-” “There you are!” Spike gulped as a trio of changelings rounded the corner of one of the passages. “Quick!” Spike gestured to Novo. ”Run!” They both turned around, only to see three more right in front of them. “Unhand that bunny!” One of the Changelings cried out. “I’m not holding it!” Spike said, shielding his face. “Please don’t eat me!.” “Oh. He’s right.” The Changeling said, picking up the rabbit and looking it in the eyes. “There you are, let’s get you back to the others.” The Changeling turned to the other two and an edge came to her bubbly voice. “You two, you know what you have to do.” With that, Spike watched the changeling happily start bouncing down the passageway it had come from earlier, bunny on its back. What is wrong with this hive? Spike looked around for the other three Changelings that he swore had been behind them. And where’d they go? “Ah-heh, now, you two, let’s just talk this out, please?” Spike heard Novo say to the two remaining Changelings who were now approaching them. “Hisssssss!” They echoed. “Hiss!” The one with pink glowing eyes repeated. “Hiiiiiis” Said the other with blue eyes. The pink one rolled it’s eyes and looked at the other. “Hiiisss?” The second one asked. “...Eh.” Pink replied, sticking its tongue at the first, apparently trying to enunciate for the second one. “HiSSSssssSsSSsssss.” “...What are they doing?” Spike whispered, watching the two Changeling’s start making faces at one another. “I don’t know...I-is this what adventuring is like?” Novo asked hesitatingly. Spike sighed dejectedly. “More or less. Fun, right?” “Fun?” The changeling’s suddenly repeated in unison. Peering over, both of the Changeling’s were now looking at Spike with interest. “What fun?” Pink asked, bringing herself inches from Spike’s face. “Fun!” Blue repeated. “Where’s the fun?” “Fun!” “Uhhh..” Spike mumbled confusedly. “Okay, that’s enough out of you two!” Another similar voice bellowed. “Awww, it’s the Miniboss.” Another Changeling with a yellow hardhat on approached them from one of the passages. “You two” The Miniboss pointed a hoof at them. “Hurry up and get ready, you're up soon.” “Oh, great!” One of them chirped before they both took to the air and flew off. “Okay.” Spike directed his attention to the Miniboss Changeling. “I don’t really care what happens at this point, but I have to know. Why do all of you sound like Pinkie making gruff voices?” The Miniboss raised an eyebrow in confusion, her eyes darting around shiftily and voice getting faster as she went on. “Pinkie? Never heard of her, sounds like a great mare, maybesaw herat aparty once, IDon’tTakeOrdersFromYou,You’reNotMyParents!” With a quick clap of her hooves, the Miniboss gave them an overly wide grin. “Anyways! You two are here for the games, right? Great! Team thirteen needed some more hooves and we are running low on changeling power. Let’s get you suited up!” The Miniboss started walking down the main hall as Novo and Spike looked to one another. Spike just shrugged and started to follow behind. They hooked a right down one of the passages and finally began to see more than stone walls and colored lights. The walls not only had a line of sunflowers decorating it, as it was joined by a line of paper rabbit heads, hearts, and crescent moons. A large opening to the left of the tunnel came up, it’s outside decorated with more rabbit faces and neon-colored fake eggs. Spike slowed down to look in, curious at the amount of noise coming from inside. Calling it a room would be wrong, inside was more of an indoor hoofball field filled with rabbits. A small wooden fence mostly kept them inside where, somehow, a grassy field was growing. Several large, brown-looking eggs were being carefully picked up by the Changelings in the fenced field. To Spike’s utter confusion, one of the clucking rabbits actually laid one of the brown eggs before he had to hurry to catch up with the others. “Alright newbies.” The Miniboss said, stopping at a large wooden door connected to the passageway. The door and sides were decorated with Nightmare Night ornaments, consisting mostly of spiderwebs and paper ghosts. “Get in there, change, and meet in the Queen’s Hall with every changeling else in fifteen minutes. Just follow the hearts on the right.” She pointed a hoof down the continuing passageway. “Change?” Novo asked. “What, did I stutter?” The Miniboss answered gruffly, raising an eyebrow. “Get changed, welcome to the swarm, and remember the most important part of this; to have fun!” Without another word, the Miniboss turned around and began hopping down the hallway until she was out of sight. “Ugh, this is like dealing with a dozen smaller Discord’s.” Spike groaned out, rubbing his temples. “Well, at least they seem friendly, right?” Novo offered. “I guess.” Spike sighed, turning the door handle and walking into the room. “Let’s just see what he was talking about and...oh, you have got to be kidding me!” But Something Lost“Spike?” Novo said, giving the door a knock as she waited out in the passageway. “Come on, hun, it’s time we get to that Hall of theirs.” “We’re going to get caught, you know.” Came Spike’s muffled reply. “I mean, probably? But so far, that hasn’t been a bad thing, right?” “...Fine, I’m coming out.” Spike shuffled out of the room, covered in chitin. Or, at least, the costume equivalent of it. He’d managed to get his back legs into the outfit, but considering it had been made for a quadruped, he was having some fitting issues. The head of the disguise was just flopped over so he could peer out of one eye, and he was holding the rest of the costume off the ground so he could walk. Novo’s outfit was better. She looked like a rather large Changeling up until the large white Hippogriff wings poking out of the sides. Despite being durable, the costume had not held up well when she tried to fit them into the small bug wing holes. Despite her own sorry state, Novo laughed when she saw Spike shuffle out of the room. “Yeah, yeah.” He grumbled. “Let’s just go and get this over with.” As the two made their way down the hallway, they were passed every so often by other Changelings either bouncing along, or flying past them. None seemed interested in the misshapen duo at the moment, though. “See?” Novo smiled smugly, apparently getting used to the strangeness of the hive. “Blending right in.” Spike rolled his eyes at her. “Trust me, this is not how these missions normally go, so you’re really learning nothing here.” Novo shrugged. “Eh, I’ll take it. It’s not like a Queen gets to take off like this very often anyways.” A short time later, they saw the passage widening out and a huge amount of pink and red paper hearts covering the sides of the passage before it expanded out into a huge domed multi-tiered room. Changelings were flying around sporadically, going to different levels of the room, while others seemed to be sitting in small groups and chatting, their hooves moving sporadically as they talked to illustrate their points. The center of the room caught Spike’s eye, though. A large empty dais made of stone was there with no Changelings on it. Small signs dotted the first foot of space below the dais sporadically. “Unless instructed, stay off Diane’s Dias!” It seemed to be working, somehow, Every other space of the Hall was at least partly occupied, but the dais remained free of changelings. The second oddity that caught Spike’s eye was the ridiculously large scoreboard hanging from the ceiling over the dais. Even changelings from the very back of the room would be able to see the writing on it. The names of different teams and numbers were written across it, but Spike couldn’t make heads of tails on what they meant. A bigger question loomed in Spike’s head right now though. Just how many of these are real changelings? The ones flying around the room had to be, Spike only knew of one pegasus whose wings could fit through the small holes made for these costumes, and his muscles would have just destroyed it regardless. Spike’s thoughts were interrupted as an air horn suddenly went off. After it faded out, he realized the room was down to a low murmur as opposed to the roaring of earlier. The Changelings around him began approaching the dais, sitting down in a slowly growing circle around it. Spike and Novo joined them just as the lights went out in the room and a hush fell over everything. “CHANGELINGS AND GENTLEDRAKES!” Pinkie again, seriously, how do they all have her voice? “WEIGHING IN AT FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS AND COMPETING FOR HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE OF SUPREME RULER, I GIVE YOU THE ONE, THE ONLY; CHRYSALIIIIIIIISSSSSS!” A stage light hit the center of the dais, revealing Chrysalis in all her buggy glory wearing an overly large golden belt around her waist. Spike sat there, frozen amid the hoard of cheering Changelings. THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE! She’s still petrified! “Hooray for bug snooty!” “You go girl!” “Down with Purple Snooty!” “Quesadillas to Purple Snooty!” “Quesadillas!” With a soft wave of her hoof, Chrysalis brought the room back down to a low murmur. “Changelings!” She called out, surprisingly not sounding like Pinkie Pie. “Thank you for your loyalty! For your dedication to the cause!” Still, as Spike took Chrysalis in, something was off. Something new by her crown, but he couldn’t see what it was from here. “Today marks six months since we started this plan, and let me say, you could not have made me prouder! The lands are colder, and soon we will be ready to start the next phase!” “Oh, I know this part.” Novo muttered next to him. “This is when she explains her plan, right?” “Yeah, pretty normal. But,-” Spike scratched the back of his chitinous head, dropping part of the costume. “this makes no sense. She’s supposed to be in stone.” “But!” Chrysalis exclaimed, casually walking across the dais. “That is not important right now.” “Great,” Spike sighed. “And now we are off script.” Chrysalis levitated a piece of paper up that was stuck in her belt and looked it over, occasionally glancing at the scoreboard before finally nodding and addressing the assembled Changelings again. “Teams six and eight, along with Minibosses one and four!” A little over a dozen Changelings flew up to the dais and landed at attention. Spike recognized the Changeling with the hard hat who was standing next to one wearing a buffalo headdress. “Allright,” Chrysalis said, standing in front of the assembled changelings. “You’re up, don your disguises for this mission, and remember to clear everything with the minibosses beforehand, or you may miss out on points for your team.” “Yes, Chrysalis!” The Changelings echoed, giving a salute. “Changelings! Disguise!” “Chrysalis called out. As one, the Changelings on the dais reached behind their heads and unzipped, dropping the Changeling costumes to the floor to reveal over a dozen Pinkies. “Nooooooo…” Spike whimpered pitifully. “Ah, going for the pink look,” Chrysalis continued. “A classic. I wish some of you would choose something a bit different, but no matter. Off you go then.” The Pinkies saluted Chrysalis once more and bounced off stage as the audience wished them luck and threw roses. Afterward, several changelings flew down from the upper levels and grabbed the disguises before flying away, leaving Chrysalis alone on stage again. “And now, to the second part of our business today.” Suddenly, a stage light appeared over Spike and Novo, partially blinding them. “It looks like team thirteen has two new recruits this month! You two, come up here and meet your Queen.” The Changeling’s around Spike let out whoops of joy and patted him on the back. Despite his best attempt, he found himself shuffling up onto the dais along with Novo thanks to the helping hooves of those around them. Chrysalis eyed them both over neutrally before settling her gaze on Spike. “Aren’t you a little short for a Changeling?” She asked, causing a few snickers in the audience. “Come on, Chrysalis, let’s just cut with the jokes and get right to the point.” Spike glared up at her and quickly worked his way out of the bulky disguise, tossing it aside. A collective gasp went up from the Changelings. “Oh, come on!” Spike called out to them. “You had to know I wasn’t a changeling, right!?” Chrysalis took a step back, pointing her hoof at Spike. “Deceiver!” Spike gave Chrysalis a bored expression. “Are you really one to talk?” She waved a hoof at him nonchalantly. “No, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.” Chrysalis looked over to Novo. “And what about you?” “Uhm...hail Queen Chrysalis?” Spike glared at her. “Yeah, I thought so.” Chrysalis chuckled, looking back at Spike. “After all those warnings, you still came here, alone. Looks like there’s no Twilight here to save you this time.” “You won’t get away with this, Chrysalis!” “You won’t get away with this Chrysalis.” She mimed, rolling her eyes. “Pah! I don’t think you understand, whelp. No Twilight means no victory for you. Soon, my Changelings will leave this island, and conquer new lands across the sea!” “You monster! If you take over the islands, both the Hippogriffs and Equestria will stop you!” Chrysalis glared at Spike, an expression Spike was happy to return. “You really are a terrible listener.” Chrysalis said. “What?” Chrysalis sat down and crossed her front hooves in annoyance, pointing one at Spike. “I never said I wanted these tiny little islands, I said ‘new lands’, how new can they be if we’ve been playing with them for over half a year now, huh? Chrysalis walked over to Spike, poking him in the chest with each word. “Think. Before. You. Speak!” “Woah, wait a minute. Then, what are you doing?” he asked, confusion clear on his face as he rubbed his stomach. “Please,” Chrysalis turned away and began to pace the dais. “do you really think I would stay anywhere near Equestria? After my last disgraceful defeat to Twilight and her friends, and Discord, and every pony in Canterlot, and part of the Crystal empire...and a group of senior citizens...and a bunch of foals…” Chrysalis trailed off for a moment, her left eye twitching before she shook her head. “After that, I decided it would be best to leave Equestria entirely.” “But, you were turned to stone.” Spike pointed out. Chrysalis nodded. “I got better.” “...” “...” “C-could you, um, maybe explain a l-” The blast from Chrysalis’s horn sent him halfway across the room before a Pinkie with a giant catcher’s mitt stopped him from slamming into a wall. Shortly after, Spike was tossed back onto the dais. “I. Got. Better.” She repeated, glaring at Spike. “G-got it.” Spike stood back up, wiping dust off of himself. “B-but, you are a fraud.” Chrysalis raised an eyebrow, giving him a predatory smirk. “Am I?” Spike had noticed something when Chrysalis wheeled her head around to blast him. It was only briefly, but it had been there. Wordlessly, he looked over to Novo. “Did you see?” “I did, hun.” She confirmed. “What are you two talking abou-” Spike shot fire out of his mouth at Chrysalis, who lept back easily to evade it. “Hah!” ZZZZZZZZZZIP! “Huh?” Chrysalis said confusedly. She glanced to her right after noticing somepony standing next to her. Novo was next to her, holding onto the zipper that was now down to Chrysalis’s belly. “...Crab apples.” The lights went out of Chrysalis’s eyes as the costume folded in on itself and fell to the floor. The assembled Changelings gasped as somepony stepped out of the costume. “...How’d you know?” She asked, kicking the costume aside, her fur a noticeably darker pink than the others in the room. “I saw it when you hit me with that spell,” Spike replied to the pink mare. “Hmph, figures.“ The Pinkie said, flipping her straight hair back and glaring at Spike. “It’s always one stupid little thing that messes everything up for me.” “I still don’t understand though.” Spike looked around at the cavern, up at the scoreboard, then down to the Changelings. “How could a Pinkie clone do this? Why would you do this?” “Hah!” The Pinkie clone barked. “It doesn’t matter now, Purple Snooty can’t get here in time to stop us now, loser. Changelings! Transform!” Every Changeling in the room took off their disguise, revealing another Pinkie clone. Every. Single. One. T-They're all Pinkie clones. Just...don’t question the horn blast...or the flying...you saw what that did to Twilight, Spike. “S-so, if you’re all Pinkie clones.” he pointed to the former Chrysalis. “Why do you look different?” “Because she’s meaner!” One of the Pinkie clones called out. “Yeah! She’s Meanie Pinkie!” Another said. Meanie Pinkie gave out a growl. “It’s always Meanie Pinkie with all of you! I am more organized, but it’s never Order Pinkie! I planned out our whole trip here, but it’s never Planner Pinkie! It’s always Meanie Pinkie! Well, ya know what, Spikey!?” Meanie Pinkie walked up to Spike and pressed her nose against his hard. “I have a right to be mean! I saw what you and your friends did to the other Pinkies! I grabbed every other Pinkie I could find and high-tailed it out of there before Purple Snooty could blast us all to pieces!” “But that’s not possible!” Spike argued back. “We searched all of Ponyville!” Meanie Pinkie rolled her eyes and took a step back. “Right, because Pinkie is SO good at staying in one place for a long time. I found thirty alone next to that mirror pool, so, maybe if you guys hadn’t sucked at searching, you wouldn’t be in this situation right now, would ya?” “Woah, they’re right, you are mean.” Spike replied. “Yeah, well, you try keeping seventy eight other Pinkies alive and tell me how chummy you are a few years down the line.” She grumbled. “Heh, no thanks, one sister is enough trouble for me.” Spike replied, looking out over all the Pinkies. “Are there really that many of you?” “Luckily!” She glared over him at the others quickly before looking back to Spike. “Do you even know how hard it is to keep that many Pies safe? Very! We did silent games to keep quiet, costume parties when we had to be sneaky, and marathons to finally get us this far away from Purple Snooty. But now, it’s almost over.” Meanie Pinkie looked up at the giant board. “All we have to do is complete the Islands War game and it’s over.” She then eyed Spike warily. “So, don’t get in my way.” “Islands War?” Novo asked. “Oh, right.” Meanie Pinkie glared over at Novo. “You’re not really joining us, right?” Novo shook her head. “Sorry, hun, I have my own group I need to be Queen of.” “Figures, back to being the only sane one around here again.” Meanie Pinkie grouched. “So, what is this plan of yours?” Spike asked. “Well, we need to get over the ocean.” Meanie Pinkie explained, giving one of the Pinkies an evil eye as they got a bit too close to the dais. After a few seconds, they backed away. “But the problem is the water in the way. So, what’s the best way to deal with it? Windigos!” “What? No!” Spike said, shaking his head back and forth quickly. “Boats! Boats is the easiest answer!” “Okay, smart dragon. Pop quiz time! Would you trust Pinkie Pie to sail a boat?” Spike opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “Exactly! And even if we found somepony to take us over, do you really think that boat wouldn’t accidentally catch on fire, or flip, or explode on the first day?” Meanie Pinkie argued. Spike still had nothing. Meanie Pinkie waved up to the board. “Hence the Island game. Make twelve teams, make the most reliable Pinkies keep track of scores so it’s competitive and fun, send them out as Changelings to cause havoc, and get the Windigos to freeze the water. Simple, right?” “No.” Spike said empathetically. “None of that is simple.” “Well, no one asked you!” “Wait.” Novo cocked her head to the side. “Twelve teams? What about team thirteen?” “Oh, that’s just kind of a joke.” Meanie Pinkie said, then put on a fake perky, bubbly voice. “Gee, Other Pinkie, how’s your group doing? Totally Funerrific, Pinkie, we are way ahead of team thirteen this week! I heard one of them was eaten by a shark again! Oh, that silly team thirteen! Yeah, well, at least they are having fun, despite the horrible bodily injuries.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, it just became a thing.” “I...see...well, I have some good news for you at least.” Spike looked at Meanie Pinkie a little sheepishly. “Twilight technically cannot legally blast any of you.” “What?” Meanie Pinkie said with a questioning glare. “Well, she sure didn’t seem to mind breaking that law last time I saw her.” “It wasn’t actually a law until about a year ago after another incident with the Mirror Pool. But, after the “Trixie Incident”, and Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s former student, having a long conversation with Twilight, the destruction of clones is now illegal. However, so is making them.” “Huh.” Meanie Pinkie pondered for a moment. “I...guess that is good then? Really wish somepony had told me about that before all of this, though.” Spike grinned. “Yeah, believe me, you and Starlight are still the only ones fully happy with that law. But so long as the Trixies stay away from Canterlot, it should stay in effect.” FWOOSH! “Well now,” Spike said, snatching the scroll out of the air as it materialized in from his breath. “And speaking of Twilight.” Spike unrolled the scroll, speaking out loud out of years of habit. Dear Spike, How have you been? It’s been a week since your last progress report, so I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I trust you can handle anything Equestria can throw at you at this point, but, well, that’s just the thing; you’re not in Equestria anymore. So, please write back as soon as you can. Your Spears for toys initiative just opened up yesterday, and I have to say, it’s done incredibly well! “Doesn’t she mean Toys for Spears?” Meanie Pinkie asked. “See?” Spike said, looking over at Novo. “What did I tell you? It’s going great!” “Yeah, just keep reading, fire brain.” Novo replied. “Sheesh, just ignore me. I see how it is.” Meanie Pinkie grumbled. Spike continued. We’ve given out several thousand spears in exchange for toys in just the first day! I’m sure this will increase safety on the streets, though I do need to ask why you added a clemency clause for ponies exchanging the toys. Is there a form of toy that is illegal? I have to go, apparently there’s a new crisis popping up in Canterlot. Stay safe and write back when you can! “Aw, nuts.” Spike groaned, putting the letter down. “Now Spike,” Novo said, smirking. “I am all for making sure every creature can defend itself. But really, spears?” “You know what I meant!” Spike protested. “It just...seems like everypony else didn’t.” Novo patted Spike on the shoulder. “Welcome to governing. It only gets worse.” “Don’t I know it.” Meanie Pinkie sighed out, watching as the other Pinkies had started a singing conga line into and out of all three entrances to the room. “How...there’s a lot of Pinkies here, but not enough for-” Spike just pointed to what was happening. “Don’t I know it…” “Well, at least they are happy, right, hun?” Queen Novo asked Meanie Pinkie. “So, what happens next for you and your little family?” “Yeah, you don’t have to leave Equestria now if you don’t want to.” Spike added. “I’m...not really sure.” Meanie Pinkie admitted, running a hoof through her straight mane. “We may want to leave still, just in case that law gets broken. New beginning and all that. I do have another idea, but-” Meanie Pinkie looked over at Spike. The room became deathly quiet all of a sudden. “What do YOU think we should do?” Meanie Pinkie asked. Nervously, Spike looked back at Meanie Pinkie, then down to the letter from Twilight, then, oddly enough, over to Vinyl Scratch, who was now in the corner of the room setting up her turntables. Movement caught Spike’s eye for a second from on his right. A pinkie was crouched low to the ground next to him, holding up a stack of papers and looking at a stop watch. Each second, she dropped one of the papers. 10… Spike looked back to Meanie Pinkie. 9… Then back to Twilight’s letter… 8… And finally, back to Vinyl Scratch. 7... "Better hurry, Spike!" Countdown Pinkie chirped. Author's Note This, this was not easy. I went through so much trying to figure out Queen Novo as a character, to the point of looking up the voice actor and her other roles. It helped a little, but man, this was so different from what I usual write about. Though, that was why I entered the contest in the first place. Meanie Pinkie“Are you sure about this?” Meanie Pinkie asked, looking over the fields as a throng of Pinkie’s explored every rock and cranny. “Oh it’s no trouble at all, dear.” Cloudy Quartz responded. “It’ll be nice to see this old farm get a bit more lively.” She gave a tight smile before looking over to the window of the old farmhouse. Meanie looked that way but only caught the last part of a grey mare’s ear before it went out of sight. “Oh, don’t worry about Marble, she’s a little shy. But she’ll get used to everypony in time. You are family, after all.” Meanie Pinkie nodded. “Thank you, Miss Quartz. We’ll turn this rock farm into a rock plantation before you know it!” “Just call me Cloudy, dear. I’m just happy to have so many extra hooves. I feared Limestone would one day be here all alone. It’s nice to see that won’t be the case anymore. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Pa about the new construction, what with all those bits sent by that nice purple dragon.” Cloudy Quartz slowly walked back into the farmhouse, leaving Meanie Pinkie to herself. She breathed in the fresh air, happy that she no longer had to taste salt with each breath. Suddenly, her ears perked up, and she felt a sudden surge of rage tingle throughout her head. Wordlessly she ran over and behind the barn, quickly honing in on her target. “Hey!” Meanie Pie yelled at the purplish gray mare whose hoof was inches away from being broken. “Don’t touch Diane’s Dias!” Limestone Pie brought her hoof away from the dais and glared as yet another Pinkie came over to her, despite how clear she thought she made it that she wanted to be left alone earlier. Still, this Pinkie took her off guard a bit. The flat hair, the darker pink fur, this one was unique, especially the anger in her eyes and growl in her voice. Pinkie would never have looked at any of her sisters that way. Still, this was her farm, and she wasn’t about to be told what she could or couldn’t do. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s on my property.” Limestone said. “I couldn’t care less!” The Pinkie growled out, getting inches away from Limestone’s face. “Cloudy already promised nopony would touch it, so don’t!” “Hmph” Limestone leaned in, pressing her nose hard against the other mare, who wasn’t given an inch. “Well maybe I won’t if you can keep all those idiots out there from touching Holder’s Boulder!” “Hey! Don’t talk about my family like that! Only I get to call them idiots!” The Pinkie yelled back, sidestepping Limestone and almost causing her to fall over from the sudden lack of pressure. “What’s Holder’s Boulder anyways?” Limestone recovered from her misstep and pointed over to Holder’s Boulder leaning against the barn. It was just easier to hide it back here then to keep yelling at the Pinkie’s to stay away from it. The Pinkie stayed silent for a moment, looking it over before snorting and looking away. “Well, it’s really cool. No wonder you want to keep it to yourself.” Limestone’s eyes widened a little. She brought a hoof up and rubbed at one of her cheeks, not used to them being by anything but anger. “Yeah, well you're dais is really nice looking.” “Oh, um, thanks.” The Pinkie said, shuffling one of her hooves in the dirt. “So, you got a name?” Limestone asked. “Yeah, Meanie Pin-Pie. Meanie Pie.” “Hah!” Limestone cackled throatily. “You guys have the craziest names. Mine’s Limestone.” “Oh, cool.” Meanie looked around a little, apparently making sure the coast was clear of anypony else. “So,” she asked as casually as she could. “Wanna check out my dais?” “Dunno, you wanna check out my boulder?” “I’d love to.” Wait...Why Did You Click on Countdown Pinkie?"Oh spike, our great hero. Only you can drive off the Windigos, by having sex with me, Queen Novo, in this changeling hive, atop of this pile of Pinkie Pies cheering you on! quickly now! There is no time to waste and…” Queen Novo paused and took off her mask, revealing Countdown Pinkie. “So, don’t get me wrong, cause this is like, really really fun!,” Countdown Pinkie started. “But, I don’t think this is actually solving any of our problems. Do you wanna keep going anyways? I know I said we'd be open to a lot of different fantasies so long as everypony had fun, but are you su-" "Yes, I'm sure! I'm surrounded by attractive mares all day and in case you haven’t noticed my eye level is exactly at their flank level all the time. I need this!" Spike barked back. "Okay, yes, the sex thing is fine, I get it. But THIS specifically?" Spike shrugs and brings up a card with multiple images on it. “Don’t blame this one me, it’s just what I drew.” “Okay dokey loki!” Countdown Pinkie zipped the Novo mask back on. “Now… where were we, hun?” TwilightSpike whistled, impressed at the small fleet of ships docked in front of him. A much larger dock had to be put in quickly at Egg island, but they were almost ready to go. Meanie Pinkie was next to him, watching the Pinkie teams as they one by one went to their assigned ships for the voyage across the ocean. One of the minibosses, wearing a cowboy hat, was there overseeing it. “I still don’t know how you pulled this together in two weeks.” She added. “Well, Twilight felt guilty after hearing about what you and the other pinkie clones went through, so she pulled some strings.” Ironically, there were a total of thirteen ships, one for each team along with Meanie Pinkie or one of her six minibosses, and one more for their ‘VIP’s’, though the Pinkies had started calling them team thirteen. Spike chuckled a little as he looked over the VIP boat and spotted a few pointed purple hats. “Though what really pushed her to get this done so quickly was getting a few of the Trixies to agree to go with them. I’m just glad there was enough emergency funds for this after that Spears for Toys disaster.” “Don’t you mean Toys for Spears?” “...Shut up.” Vinyl Scratch“Okay all you Egg island eggheads!” Vinyl yelled into her microphone. “Let’s keep this party going all night!” Spike and Queen Novo were dancing in the throng of Pinkies and islanders in the Queen’s hall, having a blast. Confetti rained down at random intervals while fog machines and laser lights blasted all around the hive, bringing the party to every section, and for this many ponies, it was needed! “This is awesome!” Spike cried, using his patented lampshade for a hat while he danced with one of the minibosses wearing a fake leather cap with an eagle pin on it. Meanie Pinkie nodded along, the most activity out of her being one of her front hooves tapping with the beat. “I mean, I’m glad we settled everything happily with the Island Nations and got rid of the Windigos with this month-long party. but...we still didn’t figure out what we’re going to do after this.” “...Crud, you’re right.” Looking down, Spike realized that he was somehow clutching Twilight’s letter again. One of the Pinkie’s came up to his right side and took out her papers with numbers and a stopwatch again. “Why do you keep doing this?” Spike asked, receiving an eye roll from the Pinkie in question. “Oh, Spike. Deep down, you know what this timer is for. Now hurry up! Six seconds left!” she chirped. “What!?” Spike shouted over the loud music. “That’s too soon, wait!” Desperately, he started looking between Meanie Pinkie and the scroll again. “Two!” “I, um, I” “One!” “I’m gonna go with-” “Zero!” Suddenly the music died and the entire room went dark. Amidst this blackness, one of the Pinkie’s spoke up. “Huh...how WERE we getting power for everything in here, anyways?”
Nothing VenturedAs the small Hippogriff ship sailed across the waves, two voices could easily be heard in debate on the ocean going vessel’s main deck. “Honey,” Queen Novo said, “I respect what you are trying to do, but that name has to go.” Spike shook his head vehemently, his little wings flapping slightly in agitation. “What’s wrong with Spears for Toys? It gets weapons off the streets, no questions asked, and ponies get something in return they can bring home to their family.” Novo made a twirling motion with one of her claws in the air. “Nah, nah, see, the way I see it, that name at the least needs to be switched around. Even with that, though, this whole thing just sounds reckless.” “It’s too late to change the title now,” Spike argued. “Besides, Twilight was on board right after she heard the name and how it would help Canterlot’s crime problem. She already approved the program and the funds.” “Sure. Ahm not saying Twilight isn’t smart, but giving over complete power of a nation to somepony who just last year was running a school sounds like asking for trouble.” “It’ll be fine.” Spike assured Novo.” There’s been no major disasters so far.” “Then y'all’s just due for one then.” “It’s fine.” “Allright, but don’t come flying over to me none when this whole thing blows up. Toys for Spears would of been less confusing” “It’ll be fine.” Spike repeated again. He then paused for a second, curious about something else. “By the way, what made you decide to come on this trip anyways?” “Twilight, actually.” Novo said with a small smile. “I was more than a little impressed at everything she did to save Equestria from the Storm King. Now, scouting these islands to figure out what’s causing all this ruckus ain’t the same thing, but it’s a start.” Spike brought a clawed hand up to his face nervously. “Do you really think this is the Storm King’s army?” “Maybe, maybe not. But he had a lot of ships, so it wouldn’t surprise me none if whatever is left is behind all the fighting. The islands were never the best of friends, but they weren’t stupid enough to go to war with one another for no good reason like this.” Spike agreed on that. Before Twilight sent him out to act as a representative of Equestria to the Island nations, she had insisted he read up a bit on their history. The islands southwest of Equestria may not have always been at peace, but they had never attacked each other in the past without some declaration of war. Yet that seemed to be exactly what was happening from the brief reports coming back to Equestria. Spike looked out across the ocean, to the green speck of an island they were headed to. The island of Cad. With any luck, they’d gather some clues and stop whoever was behind these attacks before things got any worse. A few steps onto the islands docks, and Spike had to shake his head sadly at what he saw. How could somepony do something like this? Spike had heard what happened during the conflict between the buffalo and the villagers of Apploosa, he had witnessed first hand the damage the Storm King did to Canterlot; but it never got easier for him. Cad was a fair sized port town, named after the island it stood on. The houses were made mostly of sandy colored rock or occasionally a muddy brick with dirt roads in between. The drab colors made the remains of pies splattered across the buildings only stand out more as Spike and Novo entered the town from the docks. Occasional spots along the walls had a strange goopy white and orange trail dripping down them, making Spike think of the path a snail would make. “I guess we arrived a little late.” Spike said. “Naw, the way I see it, we arrived at exactly the right time.” Novo replied, tracing a claw through part of a peach pie on a building as she walked. “Better this hit when we weren’t here to get a face full of it.” “Good point.” Spike conceded, continuing to walk towards the middle of town. The assortment of colors splattered along some buildings were astounding, as if somepony had gotten over excited on a painting project and just used every color they could find. Spike gaped at two particular houses that had somehow collapsed under the onslaught of baked goods. “Now see? If they were living underwater, wars like this couldn’t happen.” Novo muttered. “I wouldn’t count on it. If you asked, I’m sure Pinkie would figure out a way to bring baked goods to the ocean.” “Well then, we’d better not ask her. The ocean doesn’t need this kind of damage done to it, thanks.” A croaky voice called out. “Uhm, excuse me?” Looking to his left, Spike spotted a pony near the pie-encrusted center fountain they were just about to pass. He was a green elderly stallion with a red mane and a fishing hook for a cutie mark. “Might you two be Novo the hippogriff and Spike the dragon?” Spike grinned and replied sarcastically. “Really? What gave us away?” The old pony snorted and shook Spike’s hand. “I am Mayor Gruffwind, a pleasure to meet you. Sorry to say that you came here at a poor time for our village, but then again, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Spike nodded, conceding the point. “True, we haven’t had any issues or problems with the Island Nations, so there was never any need to send a representative till now.” Spike explained. “So, what the hay happened here?” Gruffwind gestured around the town. “Pretty easy to see, isn’t it? From all accounts I could find from two days ago, ponies around town heard a battle cry just as the attack began.” “Anything notable about the battle cry?” Gruffwind shook his head. “Nope, just your typical cry of ‘food fight!’ before the first wave of pies hit the walls.” “Gotcha, yeah, nothing odd there. What happened next?” “Welp,” Gruff continued. “Once the guard posts and walls were too slippery to hold, the fighting hit the rest of the town. From what I heard, the bakeries were hit next. Poor Melda Maples lost her entire stock in just a moment as the raiders grabbed all her munitions and either ate em or turned em on the town.” “That must have been horrible for her to see.” Novo said, feather bristling. “Is the poor mare okay?” “She’ll recover, but she witnessed every baker’s worst fear, having your own creations turned on those you love” Gruffwind replied. “But, after the walls fell, it was nothing but pure chaos. I was lucky, my grand kids insisted I stay inside, but the militia was completely overwhelmed.” “I...I see.” Spike swallowed hard. “What happened after that? What did they take?” “Well now, that’s one of the odd things. Asides from not paying for Melda’s pastries, they didn’t really take much. A couple kids toys, marbles, but nothing important. The local hospital is full of ponies who claim to have been ‘wedgied’ somehow. They weren’t wearing anything, but the bruises are there. The attackers just seemed to have left their calling card and vanished.” “Wait,” Spike asked uncomfortably. “wedgies are their calling card?” “What? No! Those are!” Gruffwind pointed out to a few small flags sticking to the houses, or smeared in with the pie remains. “Those are the flags of Bury, one of our neighbors. Never did trust them, but I don’t understand why they would do this without a declaration of war. They seem to be staking a claim on the island.” “Are you sure it’s them?” “It would have to be, no other reason to stick those flags in town other than to lay claim to the island, that’s just tradition after all. Once we clean up the town, we’ll have to make plans of our own.“ Gruffwind gave a grim look. “Besides that, they are using weapons from the forbidden island, that alone means-” SPLAT! Something cracked against the side of Spike’s head, mushing into a paste that covered half his head and partially blinded him. A far too sweet smell hit his snout. He tried to wipe it off around his eye, but his hands just became sticky and smeared it around in the process. It looked similar to that white and orange good he had seen on the walls of some of the buildings, with some chocolate mixed in. Whatever this was, it was thick and hard to clean off, almost like a syrup. “There he is!” Novo cried out and ran out of Spike’s limited vision. “Use this.” Gruffwind said, putting a small rag in Spike’s paw. “Thanks!” Spike rubbed the rag over his eye as he took off after Novo. “Get back here!” Novo shouted from far in front of Spike, who was struggling to keep up while cleaning his face. After a few moments of this Spike rounded a corner only to hit a dead end between two houses. “Darn it.” Spike gasped out, panting. “I swore Novo went down here, I better-” A creepy feeling went down Spike’s spine as he faced the wall in front of him. He was used to this feeling on Nightmare Night, when Rainbow Dash was on the prowl. It was the feeling that somepony was watching him. Just stay calm, Spike. You’re a big dragon, Twilight’s Right Hoof! If she can lead a nation, you can just, just turn around and deal with whatever it is. Okay? Okay. One...Two....Three! Spike spun around as fast as he could, only to see nothing there. “Oh thank Celestia! O-okay, I better find Novo in case she’s in trouble.” Spike started to head out of the alleyway but paused after a few steps. That feeling was back again, and stronger than ever. Slowly, he took one step forward. Step,step. He took another. Step,step. There was no doubt in Spike’s mind;something was behind him. Slowly he turned his head. Nothing. He turned his head to look over his other shoulder. Still nothing. As fast as he could, Spike turned completely around. Nothing was there, but he could swear he heard somepony moving behind him again. Thinking quickly, Spike bent down and peered between his own legs only to still find nothing. At least, for the few seconds it took something to land on his back. “And you didn’t see who it was, hun?” Novo asked skeptically. “I’m telling you, she was following behind, mocking me! She just giggled and ran off after I fell over!” “Uh-huh.” Spike grumbled as they made their way into Bury, the second town on their list. He shuddered as they passed two fillies running along the dock. Their laughter brought Spike back to the oddly familiar giggle the pony he had been pursuing did before fleeing. I swear I’ve heard that laugh before. But who was it? Definitely a mare, but she was gone before I could see. “Ah’m not saying I don’t believe you, hun, but we searched the island over an didn’t find hide nor hair of anypony who didn’t live there.” “W-well, she must be good at hiding.” “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt, who knows what might have happened if there were more of them.” The conversation trailed off as they entered Bury. Thankfully, the town was in good shape this time, though something had clearly happened not too long ago. There were still some notable pie stains on the sides of several houses. Spike took notice of a few piles of rubble that likely had been houses at one point. The two were met by the town’s leader Gulf Stream, a middle-aged Pegasus stallion with baby blue fur and a yellow mane with a cloud and a hook for a cutie mark. “It’s terrible,” Gulf explained after introductions, “Cad is exactly what they claim to be, a bunch o’ low-down cads! It’s good to see sum’ interest from Equestria an’ the Hippogriffs, but don’t you worry none, we’ll be taking care of this ourselves.” “It kind of looks like you already did.” Spike explained. “Somepony attacked Cad just a few days ago.” Gulf raised an eye at that. “Hmph, well, serves em right for what they did here. Woke up in the middle of the night a month ago to them jerks flinging pies into the town. They trashed the place, put their claim to the island down, and left before we knew what was happening.” A cold breeze blew in, causing Spike to shiver a little as Gulf stared at him and Novo hard. “Whoever hit em didn’t do enough, as far as me and the town of Bury is concerned. You want to look around and see what you can see? That’s fine, we won’t stop ya, but we’ll be headed to Cad in the next few weeks to show em that Bury ain’t no chickens! Nor do we need to break taboo and steal eggs from the sacred island to fight.” “S-sacred island?” Spike asked, teeth chattering as the mid-afternoon began to fade and the temperature dropped on the island. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not ‘forbidden’, or anything silly like that. But you are only ‘supposed’ to go there late in the Spring as part of a pilgrimage, or to prepare for a ‘sacred’ war, though one of those aint happened since I can remember. Well...till now, I suppose?” “We’re not all that sure Cad actually attacked you.” Novo explained. “I mean sure there are a bunch of flags of theirs laying around here, but why wouldn’t you suppose the Storm King or some creature else isn’t egging you on?” Novo questioned. “Hmmm, well, now, there is a thought. But, the Storm King was always more about sending in ships and his goons to fight us directly, not that he particularly bothered much with us. Nuttin here he wanted, I guess. But he weren’t big on being sneaky.” Gulf Stream shrugged. “As fer anypony else? Wouldn’t make no sense. They know how ta attack, how ta lay claim, they went and got some of tha sacred eggs to be throwing at our town. So they knew about how ya declare a holy war of sorts. And besides that, all the islands know Cad’s been jealous of our place on the Island council since forever. Just makes sense they’d try to take us down a peg.” “Could you please just wait until our investigation is over then? Let us make sure it’s not some outside group trying to make your islands go to war?” Spike pleaded as Gulf shook his head. “I can give you a few weeks, we are still cleaning up and need ta prepare for the Fall, but we ain’t taking this lying down. Once we are ready, we’re taking the fight to them. Now, if there isn’t anything else, good luck, and enjoy your time on our island.” With a slight bow to both of them, Gulf walked passed them and down one of the roads. “Well, ain’t nothing but trouble brewing on these islands.” Novo commented. Spike rubbed his arms together to get some heat before sighing. “Apparently. Let’s see what the rest of the islanders have to say, but whoever is behind this is really riling everypony up.” The real question though is why?
Nothing GainedHehehehe… Spike grumbled and drowsily opened one of his eyes to his pitch black cabin room. Hehehe... The second round of soft giggling dowsed what remained of his desire to sleep. Wide-eyed, he looked around the cabin, peering into the darkness for a moment as his ears worked hard to listen to anything past the water hitting the sides of the ship and the creaking of the wood. Nothing. Spike let go of the death grip he had on his blanket and slowly reached over to the candle holder on the table next to his bed. After taking a breath to calm himself, he let out a small burst of flame, lighting the candle. The room lit up, throwing a dozen shadows out from the furniture. Spike wasn’t sure if he preferred this over the pitch black at the moment, but at least he was able to confirm that nothing was in the room with him. Spike racing mind managed to calm down a little, letting him go from its paralyzing touch enough to get off the bed and pace around the room. Nopony was in the small bathroom attached to his room, and nothing was waiting under the bed besides dust and spare sheets. Tap! Spike jumped, hitting the back of his head against the wooden frame of the bed. Groaning, he slipped his head out from underneath the bed and stood up, more annoyed than afraid now thanks to the pain. Warily, he stared over to the only glass object visible in the room; the small black porthole. Slowly, he made his way over to it. Perhaps a rock or something had hit it? A fish jumping out and now dealing with a small concussion? Could he be so lucky? Peering out into the inky black sea, it slowly dawned on Spike that a few stray pink hairs were dangling along the left corner outside of the porthole, dancing with the wind. “Fun?” The clear inquiry coming from right in front of Spike caused him to yelp and pull back a few steps from the porthole. As the light drifted away, the upside down silhouette of a pony’s face peered back at Spike, covering the porthole in a shadow of dark pink as the pony's hair damply hung across it. CRASH! Spike fell backwards onto the floor as a wave crashed into the side of the ship, the face in the porthole disappearing with the water. Shakily, Spike got back onto his feet and stared at the porthole for a few minutes to confirm whoever the pony was was not coming back. “Never sailing again,” He muttered, making a break for the door before anything else happened. Nothing. Spike grumbled and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Bags were under his eyes and he still felt sore from all the searching he did last night along with the crew for the pony he saw. But After over an hour of searching there wasn’t any trace of a pony on board. The crew was especially sure of this since everyone on board was a Hippogriff but himself, so a pony would have stuck out. Grabbing his toothbrush, Spike started cleaning his teeth as he blinked rapidly to get the sleep out of his eyes. What little sleep he managed afterwards was restless at best. Between the strange, familiar mare in the window and the fear of falling asleep and setting the boat on fire by keeping a half dozen candles burning the rest of the night, sleep had been an idealistic thought. Spike yawned again and put the toothbrush down, grabbing the offered glass of water. “Thanks, Pinkie.” He muttered, downing the glass into his mouth and gargling. “No problemo!” She chirped back. A shattering noise registered in Spike’s ears as he spit the water all over his mirror and looked to the side. A second later, he slowly turned away from the mirror and took in the rest of the bathroom, confirming that he was alone. He stepped forwards, hearing the crack of the remains of the glass underneath his legs as he exited the bathroom, then his room, and kept going until he found Queen Novo up on the bow enjoying the early morning sun. “Hey there, partner, still spooked about last night?” She asked. “Could we switch rooms, please?” Spike paced back and forth on the deck of the ship, Queen Novo sat nearby, filing her claws. Their visit to Cream island had been the same story as the other two. The only major difference between Cream and the others was just how cold it was. Cold snaps weren’t unknown to the area, but rumors from passing ships of snowstorms being seen on the horizon didn’t make the situation any less weird for everypony involved. “Each island is the same thing, over and over.” Spike commented out loud. “Someone attacks unexpectedly, steals next to nothing, puts flags down claiming the land, and then disappears.” “Mhmm.” Novo replied. “But why, and who? If it’s the Storm King’s old army, then there would be a lot more of those big guys involved, and no one could mistake those for ponies, right?” “Mhmm.” “Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are in stone, so it can’t be them. Do you think it’s somepony new?” “Mhmm.” “And,-” Spike’s eyes looked back and forth nervously. “D-do you think they might be a ghost?” “Mhmm.” “Wait, really?” “Mhmm.” Spike looked over to Novo and gave a dull expression. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” “Mhmm.” “Some help you are.” Spike muttered before giving a sigh. “What’s wrong hun?” Novo asked, blowing on her claws. “Nothing. Thanks for changing rooms, by the way.” “If it helps put you at ease it’s worth it. And you don’t have to worry about me none, whatever kept you up will be contending with a Queen tonight, and I don’t intend to lose.” She said, grinning over at him and flashing her claws. “I’m sure you won’t. So, you really think the sacred island of theirs might have something on it?” Novo shrugged. “Well it ain’t a bad idea to check it out. I mean, nopony lives there, right?” Spike nodded. “Kinda makes it a good place to hide then, don’t you think? And they have to have some way of getting their hands on those eggs of theirs. Even if it isn’t their hiding spot, we might get lucky and see them gathering the things.” “Makes sense, I just wish we had more to go on.” “Me too Sweetie, but that’s the breaks, right?” Novo got up again, stretching. “Now, how about we call it a day? It’s getting a bit too chilly out here and we’ll be to this Egg island of theirs soon enough.” “Pssst!” Spike opened his eyes to blackness. “Psst!” I guess it’s not just my room then… “Over here.” “Pinkie? Is that you?” he asked, peering into the dark. “Hurry!” Spike felt his wings shoot up in fear as a shadow by the door moved. He could barely tell, but the one spot that was just slightly less black than the rest of the room had shifted, so it must have been her. Shakily, Spike got off the bed, too focused on keeping an eye on that less black shape to grab and light a candle. “Come on.” The black shape moved again and suddenly blended in with the rest of the dark. Spike strained his ears, but the sound of hoof steps never reached them. Cautiously, he made his way to his door and reached out a claw, confirming his suspicion that it was open. Seriously, how is this kind of stuff only happening to me on this trip? Spike walked through the lower deck and headed for the stairwell to the upper decks. If that shadow Pinkie was headed down, well, there was no way he was following. The bowels of ships was where all the bad stuff happened in his comics. As Spike reached the stairwell, the sound of rain hit his ears. “Come on, Spike. I won’t bite.” Pinkie said in a dark tone, following up with a quiet giggle. Spike heard the door above him open but never close. Warily, he followed, closing the door behind him. Nervously, Spike looked around the main deck, wondering if he had taken a wrong turn. He knew it was impossible, but he really wished he had. The shadow pony with Pinkie’s voice had her back turned to him as she leaned against the rail a dozen meters from Spike. The light rain coming down had seemingly been accompanied by mist which lazily coiled and drifted around his shins. The squeal as wind hit the sails and pulled the ropes taut just confirmed to Spike that his comics had missed the mark by always focusing on what happens under the ship than above. Spike swallowed, running his tongue over his mouth briefly before starting his short trek over to Pinkie, eyes nervously darting around. Where were the guards? Who was at the steering wheel? There was supposed to be others up here other than himself! ...Is that a bucket? It was a little silly of him to distract from everything else, but yes, a few yards away from the shadowy Pinkie was a metal bucket with mist wafting out of it. What the- “Is Purple Snooty here?” “Huh?” “Purply Snooty!” The Pinkie growled out, her flat hair hanging down her left shoulder as she looked behind herself at Spike. “You know her, I saw you with her.” “U-uhm, do you mean Twilight? She’s not here, why?” Pinkie gave out a small sigh of relief. “Good. That’s...good.” From only a few hooves away, Spike could see Pinkie well enough, the moonlight that filtered through the light cloud cover was particularly helpful, despite how little of it there was. This pony was Pinkie, but also not. Her colors were darker, her expression more severe. Just being in Pinkie’s presence could lift Spike’s spirit. But here, with her, all he felt was unease. This wasn’t Pinkie. “Who are you?” The fake Pinkie smiled at him as a low humming sound began. It wasn’t coming from her, but Spike was not about to look away to figure it out. She took her hooves off the rail and fully faced him with a grin. “Oh, Spike, I’m Pinkie.” “You’re not.” He insisted. “Pinkie’s not like this. She can be creepy, but she doesn’t mean to. And why are you asking about Twilight?” “Hmph.” She grumbled, giving him a calculating glare. “Whatever, I don’t really care right now. And I’m just making sure she’s not going to blast me or my friends.” The humming grew a little louder. Briefly, Spike let his eyes flick to his sides, but couldn’t see anything past the mist and darkness. “So, who are you then? The real Pinkie would know Twilight wouldn’t do anything to her friends.” He gave her a weak glare, too unnerved to look any more threatening. “You’re the one attacking the islands, aren’t you?” “Pfft.” She flicked a hoof at him in mirth. “I’m not attacking the islands, I don’t attack my friends.” “...What?” She chuckled, sending shivers down Spike’s spine at the malevolence oozing out of the pony in front of him. “Oh, Spike.“ THUMP! Spike jumped as two changeling’s landed on the deck, each one flanking the fake Pinkie and carrying metal buckets. “Everypony, scratch that. Every creature is my friend.” And that’s my cue to run. Spike turned around and made it all of two steps before slipping on something. He smacked into the floor, rolling over as the world spun in his eyes. A changeling came into his sight and hissed down at him before a pink pony filled his vision, wearing a smirk. “Except her.” “GAH!” Spike sprung up from his bed, gasping and looking around. “Huh?” Disorientated, he looked around. It was morning, he could hear Hippogriffs working up on the deck. He stared around in amazement. “Are you kidding me!?” A nightmare? Was that it? Spike got out of bed, eyeing his room. Nothing was out of place. He gave a short bark of a laugh and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeep!” Of course, I couldn’t be so lucky. He lamented, rubbing the bump on the back of his head. “Nothing you can do right now, Spike. B-better just, clean up and head out. M-maybe you just bumped it yesterday on deck and didn’t notice?” He took two steps forward before slipping on a banana peel.
Nothing FoundEgg Island; sacred to the Island Nations. Landing there outside of certain times, or when not attending for celebrations or to perform certain rituals was considered taboo. Novo knew this, but at the moment, she had bigger concerns. “T-this isn’t good,” Spike said next to her, teeth chattering. The minute she had arrived on the main deck this morning, she could feel the cold wrap over herself. Thankfully, she was a Hippogriff, and one who was used to living in cold waters at that. “Hmmm…”Novo grunted in reply, watching the hippogriffs as they lashed the ship to the small deck on the island. “You’re right, I’m not sure why, but this place is absolutely freezing.” “It can’t just be here.” Spike replied. “It’s been getting colder since we started this trip. But why? It-” “It what?” Novo asked, looking over when Spike didn’t continue. Spike’s jaw was wide open as he looked at something on the island. Novo lined her vision up as best she could next to Spike. The island was green, though a level of frost was lightly starting to coat most of it. Novo had expected to see more of a jungle, or coconut trees, but no, it was just vast fields of green with a large mountain at the center. She thought the lack of animals was odd given the grassy fields. After a few more seconds of watching, the air above one of the fields moved. Novo blinked and looked again. “What is that?” She wondered aloud. “A Windigo…” Spike replied with dread. “A what?” She asked, squinting at the creature. She could see an outline, but it was hard to trace against the air. She heard Spike walking away, presumably to the gangplank. “We need to hurry.” “So, there are changelings and windigos on the island.” Novo confirmed, flying next to Spike as he walked around the mountain, eyes moving rapidly. “That’s what I think.” “And a changeling is…?” “It’s like a bug pony, I guess? Most of them are good now, but apparently not all of them turned a new leaf when we kicked their queen’s butt.” Spike explained as he walked, looking for any caves or signs of one. “Uh huh, and this is all from you seeing them in your dream?” “Oh, believe me, I wish it was all a dream.” Spike muttered. “Changelings live in hives, if they are here, they’ll be in this mountain… somewhere.” “Hun, allright. But, is your plan to just walk around this mountain hoping we find it?” “Unless you have a better one?” “Well, now, stop me if this sounds crazy but, we could fly.” “Uh-huh.” Spike said with a slightly sarcastic tone. “And you don’t think they would have figured out how to hide from anyone looking down? Plus, it’s a cave! Won’t being away from the ground just make it harder to spot?” “Suit yourself.” Novo flapped her wings harder and gained height before circling Spike once before heading higher. “And now I’m alone. Great.” Spike made it another hundred yards before Novo flew down and landed next to him. “Heh, that was quick.” Spike said, grinning. “How’d it go?” “Found it.” Spike’s grin turned into a solid line. “Excuse me?” “Yep, their mailbox is about a fathom ahead of us.” He scowled at her. “You’re making that up.” “What?” Novo looked at him, surprised. “No, a fathom is usually a nautical mile, but-” “No, not that, I mean about the mailbox.” Novo cocked her head to the side, looking at him before starting a casual walk. “No, it’s there.” “Changeling’s don’t have mailboxes.” “So those friendly changelings of yours don’t get any mail?” “No, no.” Spike shook his head, stepping quickly to catch up to her. “They have mailboxes now.” “Well, so do these ones. I don’t understand the problem you're having with this concept.” “Why would they have a mailbox!” Spike exclaimed, a little puff of fire shooting out of one nostril. “So they can get mail.” Came Novo’s calm reply. “From who!?” “Oh, look. Here it is.” Novo replied back, smugly pointing to a red mailbox a few hundred yards in front of them. “WHY!?” Spike screamed before falling back into the grass dramatically. After a brief moment of looking up at the clouds, Novo appeared in his vision, giving him a questioning look. “You okay down there?” “Yeah. Just working through some things.” “Alright. But isn’t this a bit dramatic for a mailbox?” “I learned from the best.” Spike replied with a strange sense of pride. After another moment, Spike stood back up. “Okay, let’s deal with this.” “Spike?” “What?” “Are you done glaring at the poor mailbox already?” “I’m just trying to figure out what’s bothering me the most. The fact that it’s here, or-” Spike opened the mailbox. “That there is actually mail in it.” “Well, we didn’t come here to go through their mail, right?” Novo reasoned, looking back at the mountain. “Besides, that’s illegal.” “I know. Twilight would kill me.” He closed the mailbox and turned back to the mountain. Only to see a changeling standing not ten yards away from him. Black chitin. Definitely not the friendly ones. Cautiously, Spike took a few steps back as Novo did the same. “Um, hey.” Spike said, hoping he sounded calmer than he really was. “Hey.” The changeling replied with a gruff Pinkie-like voice. They stared at each other for another moment before the Changeling spoke up again. “So, I’m...just gonna-” Warily, the Changeling walked over to the mailbox, keeping his eyes on the two of them, and grabbed the mail. “Okay then.” The Changeling said uneasily. “Say, you didn’t go through this or anything?” “No, no, we were just curious.” Spike insisted. The Changeling looked them over suspiciously. “Okay then. Cause that’s illegal you know.” “Yep, yep, we know.” Spike said, Novo nodding in confirmation. The Changeling took a few steps backwards and, after another silent exchange of glances, flew off. Spike followed the Changeling’s path as it banked into a nearby gaudy cave. Gaudy. Spike had no other word for it. Bright yellow Sunflowers, mostly made from paper and crayons, were strewn across the sides of the cave, along with ornaments that would fit easily into the Summer Sun Celebration back home. I-is that a welcome mat? Clack! The constant sounds of digging surrounded Spike and Novo as they entered the cave tunnel. It started off soft, but grew louder as they pressed on, along with the droning noises of changelings flying. The cave was fairly straight forward and lit by different colored paper lantern lights strung haphazardly along the walls as an odd line of paper sunflowers descended into the tunnel. Despite passing a few smaller tunnels, Spike figured it would be best to follow the main passage to prevent them from getting lost, though it did make them easy to spot. It was a bit discomforting. But what perturbed Spike the most though was the random, off-key singing. “I am a Changeling and I’m digging a hole!” A unseen Changeling shouted out in a chipper, Pinkie-like voice. This led to Spike covering both his ears for what he knew was to follow. “DIGGY DIGGY HOLE! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE!” Screamed out a capathony of other equally chipper voices. “Spike!” Novo yelled out, rubbing her ears in pain. “Can we please figure out what we are doing before I go deaf?” “I’m trying, okay? We need to find whoever is behind this and stop them.” Spike looked around. “But it’s not like I really know where they are or anything.” “Hey, wait!” Another Pinkie-like voice suddenly called out. Spike turned to look down the tunnel on his left just as something collided with his foot. Looking down revealed a small, fuzzy white rabbit staring up at him. “Oh. Hi there, little guy,” Spike said, picking the rabbit up and petting its head. “You okay?” “Bwak bwak bwak!” The sound of a chicken coming out of the rabbit’s mouth startled Spike into dropping the rabbit. Spike backed away from the rabbit. “What the-” “There you are!” Spike gulped as a trio of changelings rounded the corner of one of the passages. “Quick!” Spike gestured to Novo. ”Run!” They both turned around, only to see three more right in front of them. “Unhand that bunny!” One of the Changelings cried out. “I’m not holding it!” Spike said, shielding his face. “Please don’t eat me!.” “Oh. He’s right.” The Changeling said, picking up the rabbit and looking it in the eyes. “There you are, let’s get you back to the others.” The Changeling turned to the other two and an edge came to her bubbly voice. “You two, you know what you have to do.” With that, Spike watched the changeling happily start bouncing down the passageway it had come from earlier, bunny on its back. What is wrong with this hive? Spike looked around for the other three Changelings that he swore had been behind them. And where’d they go? “Ah-heh, now, you two, let’s just talk this out, please?” Spike heard Novo say to the two remaining Changelings who were now approaching them. “Hisssssss!” They echoed. “Hiss!” The one with pink glowing eyes repeated. “Hiiiiiis” Said the other with blue eyes. The pink one rolled it’s eyes and looked at the other. “Hiiisss?” The second one asked. “...Eh.” Pink replied, sticking its tongue at the first, apparently trying to enunciate for the second one. “HiSSSssssSsSSsssss.” “...What are they doing?” Spike whispered, watching the two Changeling’s start making faces at one another. “I don’t know...I-is this what adventuring is like?” Novo asked hesitatingly. Spike sighed dejectedly. “More or less. Fun, right?” “Fun?” The changeling’s suddenly repeated in unison. Peering over, both of the Changeling’s were now looking at Spike with interest. “What fun?” Pink asked, bringing herself inches from Spike’s face. “Fun!” Blue repeated. “Where’s the fun?” “Fun!” “Uhhh..” Spike mumbled confusedly. “Okay, that’s enough out of you two!” Another similar voice bellowed. “Awww, it’s the Miniboss.” Another Changeling with a yellow hardhat on approached them from one of the passages. “You two” The Miniboss pointed a hoof at them. “Hurry up and get ready, you're up soon.” “Oh, great!” One of them chirped before they both took to the air and flew off. “Okay.” Spike directed his attention to the Miniboss Changeling. “I don’t really care what happens at this point, but I have to know. Why do all of you sound like Pinkie making gruff voices?” The Miniboss raised an eyebrow in confusion, her eyes darting around shiftily and voice getting faster as she went on. “Pinkie? Never heard of her, sounds like a great mare, maybesaw herat aparty once, IDon’tTakeOrdersFromYou,You’reNotMyParents!” With a quick clap of her hooves, the Miniboss gave them an overly wide grin. “Anyways! You two are here for the games, right? Great! Team thirteen needed some more hooves and we are running low on changeling power. Let’s get you suited up!” The Miniboss started walking down the main hall as Novo and Spike looked to one another. Spike just shrugged and started to follow behind. They hooked a right down one of the passages and finally began to see more than stone walls and colored lights. The walls not only had a line of sunflowers decorating it, as it was joined by a line of paper rabbit heads, hearts, and crescent moons. A large opening to the left of the tunnel came up, it’s outside decorated with more rabbit faces and neon-colored fake eggs. Spike slowed down to look in, curious at the amount of noise coming from inside. Calling it a room would be wrong, inside was more of an indoor hoofball field filled with rabbits. A small wooden fence mostly kept them inside where, somehow, a grassy field was growing. Several large, brown-looking eggs were being carefully picked up by the Changelings in the fenced field. To Spike’s utter confusion, one of the clucking rabbits actually laid one of the brown eggs before he had to hurry to catch up with the others. “Alright newbies.” The Miniboss said, stopping at a large wooden door connected to the passageway. The door and sides were decorated with Nightmare Night ornaments, consisting mostly of spiderwebs and paper ghosts. “Get in there, change, and meet in the Queen’s Hall with every changeling else in fifteen minutes. Just follow the hearts on the right.” She pointed a hoof down the continuing passageway. “Change?” Novo asked. “What, did I stutter?” The Miniboss answered gruffly, raising an eyebrow. “Get changed, welcome to the swarm, and remember the most important part of this; to have fun!” Without another word, the Miniboss turned around and began hopping down the hallway until she was out of sight. “Ugh, this is like dealing with a dozen smaller Discord’s.” Spike groaned out, rubbing his temples. “Well, at least they seem friendly, right?” Novo offered. “I guess.” Spike sighed, turning the door handle and walking into the room. “Let’s just see what he was talking about and...oh, you have got to be kidding me!”
But Something Lost“Spike?” Novo said, giving the door a knock as she waited out in the passageway. “Come on, hun, it’s time we get to that Hall of theirs.” “We’re going to get caught, you know.” Came Spike’s muffled reply. “I mean, probably? But so far, that hasn’t been a bad thing, right?” “...Fine, I’m coming out.” Spike shuffled out of the room, covered in chitin. Or, at least, the costume equivalent of it. He’d managed to get his back legs into the outfit, but considering it had been made for a quadruped, he was having some fitting issues. The head of the disguise was just flopped over so he could peer out of one eye, and he was holding the rest of the costume off the ground so he could walk. Novo’s outfit was better. She looked like a rather large Changeling up until the large white Hippogriff wings poking out of the sides. Despite being durable, the costume had not held up well when she tried to fit them into the small bug wing holes. Despite her own sorry state, Novo laughed when she saw Spike shuffle out of the room. “Yeah, yeah.” He grumbled. “Let’s just go and get this over with.” As the two made their way down the hallway, they were passed every so often by other Changelings either bouncing along, or flying past them. None seemed interested in the misshapen duo at the moment, though. “See?” Novo smiled smugly, apparently getting used to the strangeness of the hive. “Blending right in.” Spike rolled his eyes at her. “Trust me, this is not how these missions normally go, so you’re really learning nothing here.” Novo shrugged. “Eh, I’ll take it. It’s not like a Queen gets to take off like this very often anyways.” A short time later, they saw the passage widening out and a huge amount of pink and red paper hearts covering the sides of the passage before it expanded out into a huge domed multi-tiered room. Changelings were flying around sporadically, going to different levels of the room, while others seemed to be sitting in small groups and chatting, their hooves moving sporadically as they talked to illustrate their points. The center of the room caught Spike’s eye, though. A large empty dais made of stone was there with no Changelings on it. Small signs dotted the first foot of space below the dais sporadically. “Unless instructed, stay off Diane’s Dias!” It seemed to be working, somehow, Every other space of the Hall was at least partly occupied, but the dais remained free of changelings. The second oddity that caught Spike’s eye was the ridiculously large scoreboard hanging from the ceiling over the dais. Even changelings from the very back of the room would be able to see the writing on it. The names of different teams and numbers were written across it, but Spike couldn’t make heads of tails on what they meant. A bigger question loomed in Spike’s head right now though. Just how many of these are real changelings? The ones flying around the room had to be, Spike only knew of one pegasus whose wings could fit through the small holes made for these costumes, and his muscles would have just destroyed it regardless. Spike’s thoughts were interrupted as an air horn suddenly went off. After it faded out, he realized the room was down to a low murmur as opposed to the roaring of earlier. The Changelings around him began approaching the dais, sitting down in a slowly growing circle around it. Spike and Novo joined them just as the lights went out in the room and a hush fell over everything. “CHANGELINGS AND GENTLEDRAKES!” Pinkie again, seriously, how do they all have her voice? “WEIGHING IN AT FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS AND COMPETING FOR HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE OF SUPREME RULER, I GIVE YOU THE ONE, THE ONLY; CHRYSALIIIIIIIISSSSSS!” A stage light hit the center of the dais, revealing Chrysalis in all her buggy glory wearing an overly large golden belt around her waist. Spike sat there, frozen amid the hoard of cheering Changelings. THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE! She’s still petrified! “Hooray for bug snooty!” “You go girl!” “Down with Purple Snooty!” “Quesadillas to Purple Snooty!” “Quesadillas!” With a soft wave of her hoof, Chrysalis brought the room back down to a low murmur. “Changelings!” She called out, surprisingly not sounding like Pinkie Pie. “Thank you for your loyalty! For your dedication to the cause!” Still, as Spike took Chrysalis in, something was off. Something new by her crown, but he couldn’t see what it was from here. “Today marks six months since we started this plan, and let me say, you could not have made me prouder! The lands are colder, and soon we will be ready to start the next phase!” “Oh, I know this part.” Novo muttered next to him. “This is when she explains her plan, right?” “Yeah, pretty normal. But,-” Spike scratched the back of his chitinous head, dropping part of the costume. “this makes no sense. She’s supposed to be in stone.” “But!” Chrysalis exclaimed, casually walking across the dais. “That is not important right now.” “Great,” Spike sighed. “And now we are off script.” Chrysalis levitated a piece of paper up that was stuck in her belt and looked it over, occasionally glancing at the scoreboard before finally nodding and addressing the assembled Changelings again. “Teams six and eight, along with Minibosses one and four!” A little over a dozen Changelings flew up to the dais and landed at attention. Spike recognized the Changeling with the hard hat who was standing next to one wearing a buffalo headdress. “Allright,” Chrysalis said, standing in front of the assembled changelings. “You’re up, don your disguises for this mission, and remember to clear everything with the minibosses beforehand, or you may miss out on points for your team.” “Yes, Chrysalis!” The Changelings echoed, giving a salute. “Changelings! Disguise!” “Chrysalis called out. As one, the Changelings on the dais reached behind their heads and unzipped, dropping the Changeling costumes to the floor to reveal over a dozen Pinkies. “Nooooooo…” Spike whimpered pitifully. “Ah, going for the pink look,” Chrysalis continued. “A classic. I wish some of you would choose something a bit different, but no matter. Off you go then.” The Pinkies saluted Chrysalis once more and bounced off stage as the audience wished them luck and threw roses. Afterward, several changelings flew down from the upper levels and grabbed the disguises before flying away, leaving Chrysalis alone on stage again. “And now, to the second part of our business today.” Suddenly, a stage light appeared over Spike and Novo, partially blinding them. “It looks like team thirteen has two new recruits this month! You two, come up here and meet your Queen.” The Changeling’s around Spike let out whoops of joy and patted him on the back. Despite his best attempt, he found himself shuffling up onto the dais along with Novo thanks to the helping hooves of those around them. Chrysalis eyed them both over neutrally before settling her gaze on Spike. “Aren’t you a little short for a Changeling?” She asked, causing a few snickers in the audience. “Come on, Chrysalis, let’s just cut with the jokes and get right to the point.” Spike glared up at her and quickly worked his way out of the bulky disguise, tossing it aside. A collective gasp went up from the Changelings. “Oh, come on!” Spike called out to them. “You had to know I wasn’t a changeling, right!?” Chrysalis took a step back, pointing her hoof at Spike. “Deceiver!” Spike gave Chrysalis a bored expression. “Are you really one to talk?” She waved a hoof at him nonchalantly. “No, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.” Chrysalis looked over to Novo. “And what about you?” “Uhm...hail Queen Chrysalis?” Spike glared at her. “Yeah, I thought so.” Chrysalis chuckled, looking back at Spike. “After all those warnings, you still came here, alone. Looks like there’s no Twilight here to save you this time.” “You won’t get away with this, Chrysalis!” “You won’t get away with this Chrysalis.” She mimed, rolling her eyes. “Pah! I don’t think you understand, whelp. No Twilight means no victory for you. Soon, my Changelings will leave this island, and conquer new lands across the sea!” “You monster! If you take over the islands, both the Hippogriffs and Equestria will stop you!” Chrysalis glared at Spike, an expression Spike was happy to return. “You really are a terrible listener.” Chrysalis said. “What?” Chrysalis sat down and crossed her front hooves in annoyance, pointing one at Spike. “I never said I wanted these tiny little islands, I said ‘new lands’, how new can they be if we’ve been playing with them for over half a year now, huh? Chrysalis walked over to Spike, poking him in the chest with each word. “Think. Before. You. Speak!” “Woah, wait a minute. Then, what are you doing?” he asked, confusion clear on his face as he rubbed his stomach. “Please,” Chrysalis turned away and began to pace the dais. “do you really think I would stay anywhere near Equestria? After my last disgraceful defeat to Twilight and her friends, and Discord, and every pony in Canterlot, and part of the Crystal empire...and a group of senior citizens...and a bunch of foals…” Chrysalis trailed off for a moment, her left eye twitching before she shook her head. “After that, I decided it would be best to leave Equestria entirely.” “But, you were turned to stone.” Spike pointed out. Chrysalis nodded. “I got better.” “...” “...” “C-could you, um, maybe explain a l-” The blast from Chrysalis’s horn sent him halfway across the room before a Pinkie with a giant catcher’s mitt stopped him from slamming into a wall. Shortly after, Spike was tossed back onto the dais. “I. Got. Better.” She repeated, glaring at Spike. “G-got it.” Spike stood back up, wiping dust off of himself. “B-but, you are a fraud.” Chrysalis raised an eyebrow, giving him a predatory smirk. “Am I?” Spike had noticed something when Chrysalis wheeled her head around to blast him. It was only briefly, but it had been there. Wordlessly, he looked over to Novo. “Did you see?” “I did, hun.” She confirmed. “What are you two talking abou-” Spike shot fire out of his mouth at Chrysalis, who lept back easily to evade it. “Hah!” ZZZZZZZZZZIP! “Huh?” Chrysalis said confusedly. She glanced to her right after noticing somepony standing next to her. Novo was next to her, holding onto the zipper that was now down to Chrysalis’s belly. “...Crab apples.” The lights went out of Chrysalis’s eyes as the costume folded in on itself and fell to the floor. The assembled Changelings gasped as somepony stepped out of the costume. “...How’d you know?” She asked, kicking the costume aside, her fur a noticeably darker pink than the others in the room. “I saw it when you hit me with that spell,” Spike replied to the pink mare. “Hmph, figures.“ The Pinkie said, flipping her straight hair back and glaring at Spike. “It’s always one stupid little thing that messes everything up for me.” “I still don’t understand though.” Spike looked around at the cavern, up at the scoreboard, then down to the Changelings. “How could a Pinkie clone do this? Why would you do this?” “Hah!” The Pinkie clone barked. “It doesn’t matter now, Purple Snooty can’t get here in time to stop us now, loser. Changelings! Transform!” Every Changeling in the room took off their disguise, revealing another Pinkie clone. Every. Single. One. T-They're all Pinkie clones. Just...don’t question the horn blast...or the flying...you saw what that did to Twilight, Spike. “S-so, if you’re all Pinkie clones.” he pointed to the former Chrysalis. “Why do you look different?” “Because she’s meaner!” One of the Pinkie clones called out. “Yeah! She’s Meanie Pinkie!” Another said. Meanie Pinkie gave out a growl. “It’s always Meanie Pinkie with all of you! I am more organized, but it’s never Order Pinkie! I planned out our whole trip here, but it’s never Planner Pinkie! It’s always Meanie Pinkie! Well, ya know what, Spikey!?” Meanie Pinkie walked up to Spike and pressed her nose against his hard. “I have a right to be mean! I saw what you and your friends did to the other Pinkies! I grabbed every other Pinkie I could find and high-tailed it out of there before Purple Snooty could blast us all to pieces!” “But that’s not possible!” Spike argued back. “We searched all of Ponyville!” Meanie Pinkie rolled her eyes and took a step back. “Right, because Pinkie is SO good at staying in one place for a long time. I found thirty alone next to that mirror pool, so, maybe if you guys hadn’t sucked at searching, you wouldn’t be in this situation right now, would ya?” “Woah, they’re right, you are mean.” Spike replied. “Yeah, well, you try keeping seventy eight other Pinkies alive and tell me how chummy you are a few years down the line.” She grumbled. “Heh, no thanks, one sister is enough trouble for me.” Spike replied, looking out over all the Pinkies. “Are there really that many of you?” “Luckily!” She glared over him at the others quickly before looking back to Spike. “Do you even know how hard it is to keep that many Pies safe? Very! We did silent games to keep quiet, costume parties when we had to be sneaky, and marathons to finally get us this far away from Purple Snooty. But now, it’s almost over.” Meanie Pinkie looked up at the giant board. “All we have to do is complete the Islands War game and it’s over.” She then eyed Spike warily. “So, don’t get in my way.” “Islands War?” Novo asked. “Oh, right.” Meanie Pinkie glared over at Novo. “You’re not really joining us, right?” Novo shook her head. “Sorry, hun, I have my own group I need to be Queen of.” “Figures, back to being the only sane one around here again.” Meanie Pinkie grouched. “So, what is this plan of yours?” Spike asked. “Well, we need to get over the ocean.” Meanie Pinkie explained, giving one of the Pinkies an evil eye as they got a bit too close to the dais. After a few seconds, they backed away. “But the problem is the water in the way. So, what’s the best way to deal with it? Windigos!” “What? No!” Spike said, shaking his head back and forth quickly. “Boats! Boats is the easiest answer!” “Okay, smart dragon. Pop quiz time! Would you trust Pinkie Pie to sail a boat?” Spike opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “Exactly! And even if we found somepony to take us over, do you really think that boat wouldn’t accidentally catch on fire, or flip, or explode on the first day?” Meanie Pinkie argued. Spike still had nothing. Meanie Pinkie waved up to the board. “Hence the Island game. Make twelve teams, make the most reliable Pinkies keep track of scores so it’s competitive and fun, send them out as Changelings to cause havoc, and get the Windigos to freeze the water. Simple, right?” “No.” Spike said empathetically. “None of that is simple.” “Well, no one asked you!” “Wait.” Novo cocked her head to the side. “Twelve teams? What about team thirteen?” “Oh, that’s just kind of a joke.” Meanie Pinkie said, then put on a fake perky, bubbly voice. “Gee, Other Pinkie, how’s your group doing? Totally Funerrific, Pinkie, we are way ahead of team thirteen this week! I heard one of them was eaten by a shark again! Oh, that silly team thirteen! Yeah, well, at least they are having fun, despite the horrible bodily injuries.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, it just became a thing.” “I...see...well, I have some good news for you at least.” Spike looked at Meanie Pinkie a little sheepishly. “Twilight technically cannot legally blast any of you.” “What?” Meanie Pinkie said with a questioning glare. “Well, she sure didn’t seem to mind breaking that law last time I saw her.” “It wasn’t actually a law until about a year ago after another incident with the Mirror Pool. But, after the “Trixie Incident”, and Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s former student, having a long conversation with Twilight, the destruction of clones is now illegal. However, so is making them.” “Huh.” Meanie Pinkie pondered for a moment. “I...guess that is good then? Really wish somepony had told me about that before all of this, though.” Spike grinned. “Yeah, believe me, you and Starlight are still the only ones fully happy with that law. But so long as the Trixies stay away from Canterlot, it should stay in effect.” FWOOSH! “Well now,” Spike said, snatching the scroll out of the air as it materialized in from his breath. “And speaking of Twilight.” Spike unrolled the scroll, speaking out loud out of years of habit. Dear Spike, How have you been? It’s been a week since your last progress report, so I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I trust you can handle anything Equestria can throw at you at this point, but, well, that’s just the thing; you’re not in Equestria anymore. So, please write back as soon as you can. Your Spears for toys initiative just opened up yesterday, and I have to say, it’s done incredibly well! “Doesn’t she mean Toys for Spears?” Meanie Pinkie asked. “See?” Spike said, looking over at Novo. “What did I tell you? It’s going great!” “Yeah, just keep reading, fire brain.” Novo replied. “Sheesh, just ignore me. I see how it is.” Meanie Pinkie grumbled. Spike continued. We’ve given out several thousand spears in exchange for toys in just the first day! I’m sure this will increase safety on the streets, though I do need to ask why you added a clemency clause for ponies exchanging the toys. Is there a form of toy that is illegal? I have to go, apparently there’s a new crisis popping up in Canterlot. Stay safe and write back when you can! “Aw, nuts.” Spike groaned, putting the letter down. “Now Spike,” Novo said, smirking. “I am all for making sure every creature can defend itself. But really, spears?” “You know what I meant!” Spike protested. “It just...seems like everypony else didn’t.” Novo patted Spike on the shoulder. “Welcome to governing. It only gets worse.” “Don’t I know it.” Meanie Pinkie sighed out, watching as the other Pinkies had started a singing conga line into and out of all three entrances to the room. “How...there’s a lot of Pinkies here, but not enough for-” Spike just pointed to what was happening. “Don’t I know it…” “Well, at least they are happy, right, hun?” Queen Novo asked Meanie Pinkie. “So, what happens next for you and your little family?” “Yeah, you don’t have to leave Equestria now if you don’t want to.” Spike added. “I’m...not really sure.” Meanie Pinkie admitted, running a hoof through her straight mane. “We may want to leave still, just in case that law gets broken. New beginning and all that. I do have another idea, but-” Meanie Pinkie looked over at Spike. The room became deathly quiet all of a sudden. “What do YOU think we should do?” Meanie Pinkie asked. Nervously, Spike looked back at Meanie Pinkie, then down to the letter from Twilight, then, oddly enough, over to Vinyl Scratch, who was now in the corner of the room setting up her turntables. Movement caught Spike’s eye for a second from on his right. A pinkie was crouched low to the ground next to him, holding up a stack of papers and looking at a stop watch. Each second, she dropped one of the papers. 10… Spike looked back to Meanie Pinkie. 9… Then back to Twilight’s letter… 8… And finally, back to Vinyl Scratch. 7... "Better hurry, Spike!" Countdown Pinkie chirped. Author's Note This, this was not easy. I went through so much trying to figure out Queen Novo as a character, to the point of looking up the voice actor and her other roles. It helped a little, but man, this was so different from what I usual write about. Though, that was why I entered the contest in the first place.
Meanie Pinkie“Are you sure about this?” Meanie Pinkie asked, looking over the fields as a throng of Pinkie’s explored every rock and cranny. “Oh it’s no trouble at all, dear.” Cloudy Quartz responded. “It’ll be nice to see this old farm get a bit more lively.” She gave a tight smile before looking over to the window of the old farmhouse. Meanie looked that way but only caught the last part of a grey mare’s ear before it went out of sight. “Oh, don’t worry about Marble, she’s a little shy. But she’ll get used to everypony in time. You are family, after all.” Meanie Pinkie nodded. “Thank you, Miss Quartz. We’ll turn this rock farm into a rock plantation before you know it!” “Just call me Cloudy, dear. I’m just happy to have so many extra hooves. I feared Limestone would one day be here all alone. It’s nice to see that won’t be the case anymore. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Pa about the new construction, what with all those bits sent by that nice purple dragon.” Cloudy Quartz slowly walked back into the farmhouse, leaving Meanie Pinkie to herself. She breathed in the fresh air, happy that she no longer had to taste salt with each breath. Suddenly, her ears perked up, and she felt a sudden surge of rage tingle throughout her head. Wordlessly she ran over and behind the barn, quickly honing in on her target. “Hey!” Meanie Pie yelled at the purplish gray mare whose hoof was inches away from being broken. “Don’t touch Diane’s Dias!” Limestone Pie brought her hoof away from the dais and glared as yet another Pinkie came over to her, despite how clear she thought she made it that she wanted to be left alone earlier. Still, this Pinkie took her off guard a bit. The flat hair, the darker pink fur, this one was unique, especially the anger in her eyes and growl in her voice. Pinkie would never have looked at any of her sisters that way. Still, this was her farm, and she wasn’t about to be told what she could or couldn’t do. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s on my property.” Limestone said. “I couldn’t care less!” The Pinkie growled out, getting inches away from Limestone’s face. “Cloudy already promised nopony would touch it, so don’t!” “Hmph” Limestone leaned in, pressing her nose hard against the other mare, who wasn’t given an inch. “Well maybe I won’t if you can keep all those idiots out there from touching Holder’s Boulder!” “Hey! Don’t talk about my family like that! Only I get to call them idiots!” The Pinkie yelled back, sidestepping Limestone and almost causing her to fall over from the sudden lack of pressure. “What’s Holder’s Boulder anyways?” Limestone recovered from her misstep and pointed over to Holder’s Boulder leaning against the barn. It was just easier to hide it back here then to keep yelling at the Pinkie’s to stay away from it. The Pinkie stayed silent for a moment, looking it over before snorting and looking away. “Well, it’s really cool. No wonder you want to keep it to yourself.” Limestone’s eyes widened a little. She brought a hoof up and rubbed at one of her cheeks, not used to them being by anything but anger. “Yeah, well you're dais is really nice looking.” “Oh, um, thanks.” The Pinkie said, shuffling one of her hooves in the dirt. “So, you got a name?” Limestone asked. “Yeah, Meanie Pin-Pie. Meanie Pie.” “Hah!” Limestone cackled throatily. “You guys have the craziest names. Mine’s Limestone.” “Oh, cool.” Meanie looked around a little, apparently making sure the coast was clear of anypony else. “So,” she asked as casually as she could. “Wanna check out my dais?” “Dunno, you wanna check out my boulder?” “I’d love to.”
Wait...Why Did You Click on Countdown Pinkie?"Oh spike, our great hero. Only you can drive off the Windigos, by having sex with me, Queen Novo, in this changeling hive, atop of this pile of Pinkie Pies cheering you on! quickly now! There is no time to waste and…” Queen Novo paused and took off her mask, revealing Countdown Pinkie. “So, don’t get me wrong, cause this is like, really really fun!,” Countdown Pinkie started. “But, I don’t think this is actually solving any of our problems. Do you wanna keep going anyways? I know I said we'd be open to a lot of different fantasies so long as everypony had fun, but are you su-" "Yes, I'm sure! I'm surrounded by attractive mares all day and in case you haven’t noticed my eye level is exactly at their flank level all the time. I need this!" Spike barked back. "Okay, yes, the sex thing is fine, I get it. But THIS specifically?" Spike shrugs and brings up a card with multiple images on it. “Don’t blame this one me, it’s just what I drew.” “Okay dokey loki!” Countdown Pinkie zipped the Novo mask back on. “Now… where were we, hun?”
TwilightSpike whistled, impressed at the small fleet of ships docked in front of him. A much larger dock had to be put in quickly at Egg island, but they were almost ready to go. Meanie Pinkie was next to him, watching the Pinkie teams as they one by one went to their assigned ships for the voyage across the ocean. One of the minibosses, wearing a cowboy hat, was there overseeing it. “I still don’t know how you pulled this together in two weeks.” She added. “Well, Twilight felt guilty after hearing about what you and the other pinkie clones went through, so she pulled some strings.” Ironically, there were a total of thirteen ships, one for each team along with Meanie Pinkie or one of her six minibosses, and one more for their ‘VIP’s’, though the Pinkies had started calling them team thirteen. Spike chuckled a little as he looked over the VIP boat and spotted a few pointed purple hats. “Though what really pushed her to get this done so quickly was getting a few of the Trixies to agree to go with them. I’m just glad there was enough emergency funds for this after that Spears for Toys disaster.” “Don’t you mean Toys for Spears?” “...Shut up.”
Vinyl Scratch“Okay all you Egg island eggheads!” Vinyl yelled into her microphone. “Let’s keep this party going all night!” Spike and Queen Novo were dancing in the throng of Pinkies and islanders in the Queen’s hall, having a blast. Confetti rained down at random intervals while fog machines and laser lights blasted all around the hive, bringing the party to every section, and for this many ponies, it was needed! “This is awesome!” Spike cried, using his patented lampshade for a hat while he danced with one of the minibosses wearing a fake leather cap with an eagle pin on it. Meanie Pinkie nodded along, the most activity out of her being one of her front hooves tapping with the beat. “I mean, I’m glad we settled everything happily with the Island Nations and got rid of the Windigos with this month-long party. but...we still didn’t figure out what we’re going to do after this.” “...Crud, you’re right.” Looking down, Spike realized that he was somehow clutching Twilight’s letter again. One of the Pinkie’s came up to his right side and took out her papers with numbers and a stopwatch again. “Why do you keep doing this?” Spike asked, receiving an eye roll from the Pinkie in question. “Oh, Spike. Deep down, you know what this timer is for. Now hurry up! Six seconds left!” she chirped. “What!?” Spike shouted over the loud music. “That’s too soon, wait!” Desperately, he started looking between Meanie Pinkie and the scroll again. “Two!” “I, um, I” “One!” “I’m gonna go with-” “Zero!” Suddenly the music died and the entire room went dark. Amidst this blackness, one of the Pinkie’s spoke up. “Huh...how WERE we getting power for everything in here, anyways?”
